I ill i||l^ifti!|mti 1 1 1 
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Glass. 



Book -^7 0^3 



^ OwoltJU ^A • C 60 K 



To 

My Threk Grandchildren, Doris G. Cook, 

Marion H. Cook, and Fred L. Cook, 

THIS Volume is Affectionately 

Dedicated by the Author 






c^"^ 



PREFACE 



The reason for the writing and publication of 
The Wayside Jottings may be told in a few words. 
I had been reading Charles W. Brewster's "Ram- 
bles About Portsmouth," published first in the 
Portsmouth Journal, of which he was the editor, 
and repubUshed in a book form. The thought oc- 
curred to me that a series of local sketches of Con- 
cord and its suburbs might be of interest. I had 
been a resident of Concord for about fifty years, 
and during that time had taken a good many ram- 
bles around the old town. I was also somewhat 
familiar with its history. 

Accordingly I began this series of local sketches 
in the Concord Evening Monitor in the fall of 1907, 
and continued the writing of them till the spring 
of 1909. Some of the miscellaneous sketches were 
published in the Concord Daily Patriot, till thirty- 
five of them have appeared from time to time in 
these local newspapers. I have been interested in 
writing them and their publication in book form 
has been a labor of love, as whatever returns are 
received over and above the cost of publication will 
be devoted for the benefit of my three grandchil- 
dren, whose names appear in the dedication. 

I am under especial obligations to some of the 
older residents of Concord for their appreciation of 
the "Jottings" and for their testimonials as to its 



vi Preface 

merits, which were of material assistance in secur- 
ing advance subscriptions enough to defray the cost 
of publication. 

I am also indebted to Henry McFarland, the 
author of the interesting volume, "Sixty Years in 
Concord and Elsewhere," for advice, and who 
kindly offered to make any needed corrections in 
the copy. I got a good deal of historical informa- 
tion from Dr. Nathaniel Bouton 's ' ' History of Con- 
cord," and also from the "New History of Con- 
cord," compiled by the History Commission. 

I hope that the readers of this volume will be 
interested in its perusal and will agree with the 
opinion of Arthur H. Chase, librarian of the state 
library, as given in his testimonial : ' ' The state 
library has subscribed for The Wayside Jottings 
because it believes the series of local sketches to be 
of important and reference value. ' ' 

HOWARD M. COOK. 



NOTES 

The author of these local sketches has endeavored to be 
accurate in all the statements in the book. But the reader may 
get the impression, in the reference to Count Rumford, that 
he founded the Rolfe and Rumford Asylum. It was founded 
by his daughter, the Countess of Rumford, though with the 
bequest left her by her father, and the accumulations of interest 
on it. 



Since writing these sketches, Mr. Giles Wheeler has 
caused to be erected, on or near the site ot the mill or torge on 
the Iron Works Road, a suitable tablet to mark the spot. He 
states that parties came from Vermont to have a mill crank 
made, and it was carried this long distance, in those days, to its 
destination. 

The author is greatly indebted to Henry H. Metcalf, Esq., 
for the use of some of the halftone illustrations in the Granite 
Monthly, for October, and also in his publication, " The City 
Beautiful." It is a gem in its way, as all who have read it will 
testify. Also to Hon. B. A. Kimball for some Illustrations 
in the History of Concord. 

While the author launches his Httle craft on the literary 
sea, and expects it to receive its share of criticism, he hopes 
that its readers will 

Be to its virtues very kind. 
And to its faults a little blind. 

Please take into consideration the object of its publication, 
which is for the benefit ot my three orphan grandchildren. 



CONTENTS 



I. 

First ramble about Concord commences at the 
corner of South Main and Pleasant Streets. — Pleas- 
ant Street to South Street. — Through this street to 
Broadway and Rollins' Park. 

11. 

Rollins' Park to Wheeler's Corner, through 
South Street to Bow Mills.— Turkey River.— Na- 
thaniel H. Carter's tribute to it. — His poem, "To 
My Native Stream." 

III. 

Bow Mills to "Portsmouth" bridge.— Whittier's 
tribute to the Merrimack in his poem, "Our 
River."— Through Hall Street to the old Rolfe 
mansion. — The home of Benjamin Thompson, af- 
terwards known as Count Rumf ord. 

IV. 

Butters' Tavern, an old-time hostlery. — Ramble 
along the west side of South Main Street. — The old 
residents on the line of this street of fifty or more 
years ago. — Arrival at the starting point of our 
first ramble. 

V. 

Plan of Main Street as it appeared in 1827. — 
Main Street formally laid out in 1785. — Pleasant 



viii Contents 

Street formerly known as the "Hopkinton Road." 
— The visit of George Thompson and John G. 
Whittier to town in 1835. — Their mobbing. — 
''Pleasant View," the home at this time of Mary- 
Baker G. Eddy. 

VI. 

Garrisons built in the town of Rumford in 1733- 
'46. — Number 4 garrison located on the line of 
Pleasant Street at Millville. — The sites of six other 
garrisons. 

VII. 

The Rumford massacre on the "Hopkinton 
Road" in 1746. — The dedication of the Bradley 
monument in 1837. — St. Paul's School and the first 
rector, Dr. Henry E. Coit. 

VIII. 

Changes in North Main Street in fifty years. — 
The conflagration of August, 1851. — The remodeled 
court house. — The site of the first log meeting 
house. — The North Church. — Dr. Nathaniel Bou- 
ton, its fourth pastor. — The destruction by fire of 
the "Old North" Church in 1870. 

IX. 

The Old North Cemetery. — Site selected in 
1730. — Blossom Hill Cemetery. — Consecrated July 
13, 1870. — Exercises at the consecration. 

X. 

East side of South Main Street. — The change in 
its appearance in fifty years. — Some of the old resi- 
dents. 



Contents ir 

XI. 

The first religious service in Concord Sunday, 
May 15, 1726. — The battle between the Penacooks 
and Mohawks on "Sugar Ball" bluff.— The East 
Concord Congregational Church. — Sewall's Falls. 
— Great expectations of East Concord as a manu- 
facturing center. — "Elmcroft" built in 1755. 

XII. 

East Concord again. — "The Fort" its original 
name. — Scotch-Irish the first settlers. — The old 
ferries on the Merrimack. — The first bridge that 
spanned the river erected in 1795. 

XIII. 

The primitive way of worship in Concord. — 
The formation of the West Concord Church in 
1832. — Rev. Asa P. Tenney its first minister. — 
"Rock-Ribbed" Rattlesnake Hill. 

XIV. 
Penacook. — The ' ' Burrough. ' ' — Joseph Walker 
the first settler. — The first woolen mill built by 
Richard Kimball and Jeremiah Abbott. 

XV. 

Two hundred and fifty men enlisted in the Civil 
War from Penacook. — The death of Maj. William 
Brown at Fort Steadman, Va. — The Baptist 
Church dedicated in 1858. — The Penacook House 
built in 1787. — The Bonney brothers. — Dustin's 
Island. — Dedication of the monument to Hannah 
Dustin June 17, 1874. 



X Contents 

XVI. 

On the line of the ''Old Hopkinton Road."— 
Dimond Hill. — Isaac N. Abbott's home. — The birth- 
place of Grace Fletcher Webster. — The Kimball 
garrison. 

XVII. 

Hopkinton village. — The old residents of the vil- 
lage in the forties. — Once the temporary capital of 
New Hampshire. — The New Hampshire Antiqua- 
rian Society. 

XVIII. 

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Hopkinton 
village. — Erected in 1827- '28. The Lafayette elm. 
— The general's visit to Hopkinton in 1825. 

XIX. 

The execution of Abraham Prescott January 6, 
1837, at Hopkinton village. — Probably the cause 
of the erection of the New Hampshire State Hos- 
pital at Concord. — The old Fletcher house. 

XX. 

Bow, one of the hill towns of Merrimack County. 
—''Meeting-House Hill."— Wood Hill and the Old 
Home Day celebration held in Hammond's grove 
on its summit. 

XXI. 

On the road to Dunbarton. — The Oliver Bailey 
farm. — The birthplace of Henry M. Putney. — Dun- 
barton Center, "a city set on a hill." — The old 
town house. — Some teachers in the old-time schools. 



Contents xi 

XXII. 

Rattlesnake Hill in the "West Concord district. — 
Interesting facts from the "New History of Con- 
cord" in regard to the development of the granite 
industry. 

XXIII. 

Lake Penacook, a gem in the crown of Concord. — 
The evolution in the methods of supplying water 
for domestic uses. — The history of the Concord 
water works. 

XXIV. 

Concord's shade trees. — Rev. Timothy Walker 
planted the first North End elms in 1764. — The 
"Webster-Coffin Elm" planted in 1782.— Other 
fine elms. — The rock maples. — The Washington 
oak on Stickney Hill. 

XXV. 

The old-time stores and merchants of Concord. — 
The modern way of displaying goods. — W. W. 
Easterbrook — Old-time merchants. 

XXVI. 

C. C. Webster, the veteran grocer. — Webster & 
Tuttle the first firm to deliver groceries. — Main 
Street in the early fifties and the merchants at 

that time. 

XXVII. 

Concord not famed as a manufacturing center. — 
A pleasant rural city. — A large amount of mental 
suffering within its borders in hospital and prison. 
— What the railroads have done for Concord. 



xii Contents 

XXVIII. 

Up and down the Merrimack in the old boating 
days. — The era of the canal boat. — The Merrimack 
in the days of inland navigation. — The method of 
the propulsion of the boats. 

XXIX. 

The logging days on the Merrimack. — Anecdote 
of Rev. Augustus Woodbury. — Amoskeag Falls, the 
favorite resort of the Indians. — Gen. John Stark. 

XXX. 

A chat with the Webster Elm.— Set out in 1782 
by the CofiEin brothers. — Reminiscences of the olden 
time as given by the elm. — The burning of the Old 
North Church in 1870. 

XXXI. 

A trip to Manchester on the electrics. — Pembroke 
Street. — Pembroke granted to the heirs of the sur- 
vivors of the Lovewell expedition. — The Blanchard 
Academy and the gymnasium. 

XXXII. 

Rev. Abraham Burnham, an old-time minister of 
Pembroke. — Reminiscences of him by a student at 
Blanchard Academy. Hooksett and its odd name. 
— Bonney's tavern. — Down the turnpike to Man- 
chester. — The new North End in the Queen City. 

XXXIII. 

Gov. Frank W. Rollins' recollections of the 
North End. — He speaks of it as he remembered it 
when a boy. — Fort Eddy and the Indian associ- 
ations. 



Contents xiii 

XXXIV. 

Governor Rollins' reminiscences continued. — A 
sketch of those who lived at the North End. 

XXXV. 

Governor Rollins' reminiscences concluded. — 
The burning of the North Church. The days of 
the old hand-engines. — The Old North when occu- 
pied as the Methodist Institute. 

XXXVI. 

The "Plains." — Formerly a gi'eat place for for- 
est fires. — The Merrimack Agricultural Society 
fair ground. — The "glacial epoch." — The camp- 
ground of the State Guard. 

XXXVII. 

Conclusion of the "Jottings." — The physical 
characteristics of Concord. — A goodly heritage for 
the dwellers in it. — A law-abiding city. — Its edu- 
cational privileges. — The early settlers, religious 
men and women. — What has the future in store for 
our rural oHy on the banks of the ]\Ierrimack ? 



WAYSIDE JOTTINGS 



WAYSIDE JOTTINGS 



When the late Charles W. Brewster was editor 
of the Portsmouth Journal, he published in that 
paper a series of local sketches, entitled, ' ' Rambles 
About Portsmouth. ' ' They were largely of an his- 
torical character, were afterwards published in two 
volumes and were highly interesting. They were 
authority on local historical matters, and it is per- 
haps due to this fact that no regular historj^ of 
Portsmouth has ever been written. Though Con- 
cord is not so rich in historical associations as Old 
Strawberry Bank, yet there are a number of ram- 
bles that one can take around the city that will 
bring to mind matters and events in Concord's his- 
tory that would be interesting and profitable to 
consider. 

For instance : Our first ramble might be laid out 
so as to include Pleasant Street to South Street; 
down South Street to Broadway; down Broadway, 
through Rollins' Park, to Rockingham Street; 
thence to Wheeler's Corner at the junction of 
South Street and the Iron Works Road ; then along 
South Street to Bow Mills; thence by the road to 
Bow Crossing and Bow Junction ; returning by the 



4 Wayside Jottings 

way of Hall, Water and South Main Streets to our 
point of starting, making a ramble of probably six 
or eight miles. It carries one a little way out of 
Concord into the famous town of Bow, which in the 
days of Timothy Walker, claimed jurisdiction over 
the most of Concord, then the town of Rumford, 
and but for Mr. Walker going to England and 
successfully contending against this claim, we 
might now be inhabitants of Bow, and that town 
the capital of New Hampshire. 

Our ramble, then, commences at the southwest 
corner of South Main and Pleasant Streets, where 
the Acquilla building now stands. Memory goes 
back to the time when the first South Church stood 
upon this site. The writer attended the last ser- 
vice held in this church, on a Sunday evening in 
the summer of the year 1859. The Rev. Mr. Trask, 
familiarly known as "Anti-Tobacco Trask," held 
forth at that time against the use of the weed. 
Whether his fervid denunciations had anything to 
do with the destruction of the church, the writer is 
not prepared to state, but this church on that night 
was numbered with the five churches of Concord 
that from time to time went up in flame and smoke, 
— the others being the old North, the new North 
and the First and Second Unitarian churches. No 
doubt the site of the new South Church, on Pleas- 
ant Street, is a more desirable one ; but an historic 
residence was thence removed, where Col. William 
A. Kent lived for so many years ; and under whose 
roof Lafayette was entertained on his visit to this 



Wayside Jottings 5 

country ; where Daniel Webster often stopped, and 
where Ralph AA'aldo Emerson was married. 

The site of the Pleasant Street Baptist Church 
was once occupied as the residence of Hon. Thomas 
W. Thompson, once a member of Congress from 
this state. This house was moved a short distance 
on to Elm Street, in the rear of this church, and 
made over into tenements, as the Kent house was 
moved to South Spring Street, and is now the home 
of W. A. Stone, Jr. Near the corner of Pleasant 
and South Streets w^as the home of Gov. Walter 
Harriman, who was one of the best stump 
speakers that the writer remembers of hearing in 
the old-time political campaigns in New Hampshire. 
The next house south, now the home of John P. 
Nutter, was formerly the residence of Judge 
]\Iatthew Harvey, who was also a governor of New 
Hampshire w^ay back in the thirties. South Street 
is of a generous width and is lined for the most 
part with a good class of houses. Amongst the 
earliest to be erected, at the north end of the street, 
were the houses that were owned and occupied by 
Col. Ephraim Hutchins, one of Concord's post- 
masters, now owned by Harry G. Emmons; the 
house occupied by Daniel H. Fletcher, one of Con- 
cord's old-time builders, now owned by Nathaniel 
E. Martin; the house occupied by Gov. Nathaniel 
B. Baker, another of New Hampshire's governors, 
now owned by Mrs. Alonzo Downing. Farther 
along the street, G. D. Huntley and W. E. Emer- 
son have erected good-looking and comfortable 



6 Wayside Jottings 

homes; Norris A. Dunklee and Hiram 0. Marsh 
added to the attraction of the street in the erection 
of their substantial homes ; and now W. i\I. Cressy, 
the playwright, has added to these by the erection 
of a fine residence on the corner of South and 
Lincoln Streets. 

It strikes the writer that sometime in the near 
or remote future the locality at the intersection of 
South, Downing, West, Broadway, and Clinton 
Streets, known aforetime as "Noyes' Corner," will 
be one of the business centers of Concord. Most 
of the travel that comes from the towns of Bow, 
Dunbarton and Weare passes through this inter- 
section of streets. Recently, a new grocery store 
has been built on the corner of Broadway and West 
Streets, and Homer Van Cor has filled it with a 
stock of goods. In the triangular plot of land, 
bounded by Broadway, West and South Streets, is 
a fine location for a small park, which might be a 
counterpart of that at the North End, at the junc- 
tion of North State and Penacook Streets. It 
would be also an appropriate place for the Rogers 
fountain, that we used to hear about on paper, but 
which has not as yet taken on a material form. 

Broadway is rightly named and is lined for a 
portion of its way with comfortable homes. Why 
more of the vacant lots, near the lower end of this 
street, have not been built upon, the writer. is not 
prepared to answer. The streets on the west of 
it are fairly well occupied with dwellings. Its 
nearness to the Boston & Maine railroad shops 




Lillian.-, t.. U..lliii>. I'ark 




Kiiliaiici- t(i Wliitr I'aik 



Wayside Jottings 7 

makes this section of the city a desirable one for 
homes for the workmen. Though the electric line 
furnishes a convenient means of getting up town, 
the laying of the track through South Street and 
Broadway has not improved them for purposes of 
driving. 

Eollins Park is one of the prettiest gems in the 
crown of Concord, and we may be sure that it will 
be so continued in the future annals of the city. 
How a lumberman would like to set a steam saw- 
mill in the grove and thus convert the noble pines 
into lumber, and make a howling wilderness of one 
of "God's first temples!" Some of these pines 
must be more than a century in age, and remind 
one of the time when all over the state old-growth 
pine was about the only kind of a tree that was 
fit to be used for lumber. But here on one of the 
seats is a good place to rest, as it were, in the first 
leg of our ramble, and to call to mind, as probably 
others have done who have come here for a restful 
time, those beautiful lines of Longfellow: 

If thou art worn and hard beset 

With trials that thou would'st forget; 

If thou would'st read a lesson that will keep 

Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep, 

Go to the hills and groves, no tears 

Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. 



8 Wayside Jottings 

II. 

Going on the second leg of our ramble takes us 
along the old highway that lies on the west of 
Rollins' Park running from South Street to Rock- 
ingham Street. It takes us by the smaller park 
where the young deer are having the time of their 
lives, the high wire fence that surrounds the park, 
through whose valley runs Bow Brook, being a 
complete protection from the dogs and the hunters 
in the open season. A short distance along Rock- 
ingham Street brings us to Wheeler 's Corner, which 
takes its name from the fact that the family of 
Wheelers, grandfather, father and grandson, we 
believe, were born or have lived in the old one- 
story house, probably all of one hundred and fifty 
years in age, that stands at the junction of South 
and Rockingham Streets and the Iron Works Road, 
this last name being given to this road from the 
fact that, years ago, iron ore, dug elsewhere, was 
made into pig iron at the mill near the bridge that 
spans Turkey River. 

Giles Wheeler, a descendant of the family from 
which this corner takes its name, lives in a neat 
cottage across the street from the old Wheeler 
house, which was his birthplace. Mr. Wheeler, in 
his profession of architect, has done a good work 
for Concord in designing and superintending the 
erection of structures of a private and public char- 
acter during the last forty years. Amongst the 
more prominent of the public buildings of which he 



Wayside Jottings 9 

superintended the erection were the government 
building, the state library and the high school 
building on School Street. Though Mr. Wheeler 
is along in years, he is not laid on the shelf by any 
means, but is interested in the furtherance of the 
interests of the City of Concord. 

From Wheeler's Corner to Bow iMills, we pass 
by a succession of comfortable dwellings, the most 
of them being on small farms devoted to the raising 
of garden truck. The soil of these farms is light, 
similar in its character to that on the "Plains," 
over the river. Timothy Hammond, near the lower 
end of the street, formerly a resident of Bow, has 
for some j^ears been a successful raiser of carrots 
and onions mainly, for which he finds a ready sale. 
Ex-Congressman Baker resides with his brother, 
John B. Baker, on this street, just over the division 
line in Bow. 

Bow is unique among the other towns in ]\Ierri- 
mack County, at least, in that there is nothing 
within its borders that can be called a village. At 
Bow Center is a Baptist Church, the to\\Ti house and 
perhaps a half dozen dwelling houses. At Bow 
j\Iills there is a somewhat larger collection of dwell- 
ings and a store, and a W. C. T. U. hall. The mill 
privileges here are good, and ]Mark Upton carries 
on quite a business at his sawmill and shingle mill. 
The old brick grist-mill has ground its last grist, 
and its water wheel has made its last revolution. 
It formerly was a place where a good share of the 
grain from Concord and surrounding towns was 



10 Wayside Jottings 

groimd, but other mills elsewhere now are doing its 
work. It would be interesting to know how many 
thousand bushels of grain have been ground in this 
old mill, between its upper and nether mill-stones, 
and so converted into food for man and beast. 

Turkey River, in some respects, is a peculiar 
stream ; it also has a peculiar as well as homely 
name. As Nathanial H. Carter says in his poem, 
"To My Native Stream": 

What though obscure thy woody source, 
What though unsung thy humble course; 
What if no lofty classic name 
Gives to thy peaceful waters fame, 
Still can thy rural haunts impai't 
A solace to this saddened heart. 

Though if its name is not a ' ' lofty classic ' ' one, 
once a year at least to old and young it is an 
euphonious name, — one that is on everybody's lips, 
and what it represents is in everybody's mouth, at 
least if they have the price to pay for it. It takes 
its name from Turkey Pond, and the name was 
given to the pond from a fancied resemblance to a 
turkey — Great Turkey Pond being the body; the 
stream that flows out of it being the neck, and 
Little Turkey Pond, into which it flows, being the 
head. Anyone looking at the map of Concord will 
see that it is as crooked a stream as can be found 
in this section of the state. Although Bow Mills 
is only about three or four miles due east, as the 
crow flies, from Truro Pond in Bow, its headwaters, 
yet this river takes a circuit of at least ten or a 



Wayside Jottings 11 

dozen miles, going from this pond north as a brook, 
into Great Turkey Pond ; thence nearly west into 
Little Turkey Pond ; thence in a southerly direction 
until it reaches Frye's INIills; then in an easterly 
direction, until it enters the INIerrimaek near Tur- 
key Falls, and thus boxing the compass. In going 
this distance there are on its course at least a half 
dozen good mill privileges, the best being at Turkey 
Falls and Bow Mills, the latter being now the only 
one in use. 

The writer has referred to Nathaniel H. Carter. 
He was one of Concord's most talented citizens and 
lived on the banks of this river, on what is now 
known as Mooreland farm. He loved this, his 
"native stream," and showed his appreciation of it 
in the verses that he wrote during the last days 
that he passed in Concord prior to going to a 
foreign land, from which he never returned. His 
poem, "To My Native Stream," may perhaps take 
rank with Whittier's "Our River," in which he 
sings the praises of the IMerrimack; with Longfel- 
low's verses, "To the River Charles." or with 
Robert Burns 's tribute to "Bonnie Doon." ^Ve 
will quote two of the eleven verses of which it is 
composed : 

Along the Shannon, Doon and Tay, 
I've wandered many a happy day. 
And sought beside the Cam and Thames 
Memorials of immortal names ; 
Or mingled in the polished train 
Of fashion, on the banks of Seine. 



12 Wayside Jottings 

Yet not the less, my iiative stream. 
Art thou to me a grateful theme. 
Than when, in heedless boyhood's prime, 
I wove for thee the rustic rhyme. 
Ere other realms, beyond the sea. 
Had spread their fairest charms for me. 

Why should Turkey River have beeu so named 
merely because it flows out of Turkey Pond? 
There is an Indian name that, it seems to the 
writer, is a good deal more befitting. It is that of 
Tahanto, a sagamore of the tribe of the Penacooks, 
and who, as Prof. Amos Hadley intimates, in 
the new ''History of Concord," was the original 
teetotaler in the plantation of Penacook. Fearful 
of its effect on the Indians, he hoped, if the settlers 
had brought with them liquor to sell, that they 
would pour it on the ground, "for it would make 
the Indians all one devil." And as Tahanto no 
doubt roamed along its banks and fished in its 
waters, what more appropriate name than his could 
be given to this river, flowing by the classic shades 
of St. Paul's, along with the other Indian names 
of the tributaries of the INIerrimaek. 

In this connection, it has always seemed to the 
writer that the names given to the states of ]\Iaine, 
New Hampshire and Rhode Island are meaningless 
and far-fetched. How much more appropriate if 
these states had been named and known, respec- 
tively, as the State of Kennebec, the State of Merri- 
mack and 'the State of Narraganset; and the same 
might be said of some of the Middle and Southern 



Wayside Jottings 13 

states, in receiving English names instead of 
Indian. And, going from the less to the greater, 
from the states to the country at large, how much 
more appropriate in every way if our great and 
universal Yankee nation should have been known as 
the United States of Columbia. 



III. 

It is but a short distance from Bow ]Mills to Bow 
Crossing, over which the trains of the Boston & 
Maine Railroad travel at full speed. Here we also 
strike the Merrimack at Turkey Falls, the second 
falls of that name, and so named from Turkey 
River. A little farther along the bank of this 
river is Portsmouth bridge, so called, built in the 
early years of the Concord & Portsmouth Railroad, 
when it went straight down to Portsmouth instead 
of making a detour by way of Manchester. It is 
about the last of the old wooden bridges on the line 
of the railroad to Boston, and when its piers were 
built they were made wide enough to have a double 
track. But one line of track has, however, been 
as yet constructed, and has to do double duty for 
the passage of the steam and the electric cars. It 
is probable that before many years an iron or steel 
bridge will replace the wooden one, and then two 
tracks can be arranged, one for each road. 

The views in the bend of the Merrimack, just 
above this bridge, in the summer and fall months, 
are beautiful, and some summer residents, being of 



14 Wayside Jottings 

that opinion, have built in a pine grove on the 
west bank of the river, a number of cottages. 
They could not be located in a place easier of 
access, as the electrics pass by the doors every half- 
hour in the summer time, and one has only to step 
from the car to his cottage. 

Mention was made in the last number of the 
"Wayside Jottings" of the love that Nathaniel H. 
Carter, the most famous of Concord's poets, had 
for the Turkey River, as was evinced in the verses 
that he wrote concerning it, two verses of which 
we quoted. John G. Whittier, all his life, was a 
dweller near the banks of the IMerrimack, — in his 
early home in Haverhill, Mass., and in his later 
one in Amesbury, — a little farther down the river. 
It is doubtful if there are any fairer views along its 
course down the backbone of the Granite State to 
the sea than are to be seen on the ride by rail from 
Concord to Lowell. And it is the same Merrimack 
above Turkey Falls and Portsmouth bridge that it 
is at the "Laurels" near Amesburj', where Whit- 
tier read his poem, "Our River," at a summer fes- 
tival, some of the verses of which we quote : 

We know the world is rich with streams 

Renowned in song and story, 
Whose music murmurs through our dreams 

Of human love and glory ; 
We know that Arno's banks are fair. 

The Rhine has castled shadows, 
And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr 

Go singing down their meadows. 



Wayside Jottings 15 

But while unpictured and unsung 

By painter or by poet, 
Our river waits the tuneful tongue 

And cunning hand to show it, — 
We only know the fond skies lean 

Above it, warm with blessing. 
And the sweet soul of our Undine 

Awakes to our caressing. 

No fickle sun-god holds the flocks 

That graze its shores in keeping; 
No icy kiss of Diane mocks 

The youth beside it sleeping: 
Our Christian river loveth most 

The beautiful and human ; 
The heathen streams of Naiads boast, 

But ours of man and woman. 

The miner in his cabin hears 

The ripple we are hearing ; 
It whispers soft to homesick ears 

Around the settler's clearing; 
In Sacramento's vales of corn, 

Or Santee's bloom of cotton. 
Our river, by its valley-born. 

Was never yet forgotten. 

And thou, O mountain-born ! — no more 

We ask the wise Allotter 
Than for the firmness of thy shore. 

The calmness of thy water. 
The cheerful lights that overlay 

Thy rugged slopes with beauty. 
To match our spirits to our day 

And make a joy of duty. 

In the opinion of the writer, and it is only his 
opinion, this is number one. Simon-pure, genuine, 



16 Wayside Jottings 

yard-wide poetry ; one does not have to read it over 
a second time to find out what the rhymster is 
driving at. For instance, witness these highly 
poetic lines : 

And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr 
Go singing down their meadows. 

This is no doubt a veiled allusion to Robert Burns 
and Walter Scott, and the association of their 
names with two of Scotland's famous rivers. 
Whether it would be correct to affirm that the 
Merrimack goes "singing" down the wide inter- 
vales of Concord, the writer is not prepared to say. 
But there is no doubt that at Amoskeag Falls, 
especially in the springtime, it goes roaring and 
tumbling down over the big boulders, and which, 
if Southey could have seen, instead of writing a 
poem on "How Does the Water Come Down at 
Lodore?" he would have written one on "How 
Does the Water Come Down at Amoskeag?" And 
he could also have thrown in a few more adjectives 
to describe the manner of its coming down. 

Hall Street, over which we pass after leaving 
Portsmouth bridge on our ramble, is an intervale 
highway, and, as the Merrimack has been continu- 
ally changing its course, who knows but what this 
street may be where was once the bed of the river ? 
Along this street are a number of farm houses and 
also dwellings, occupied by the workmen at the 
Boston & Maine Railroad shops. While the Merri- 
mack usually behaves itself and flows peacefully 



^yays^de Jottings 17 

between its banks, every few years, in the spring- 
time, it gets on a rampage and spreads itself out 
over the intervale, from "Sugar Ball" to Bow 
Crossing, and becomes a mighty river, a second 
Mississippi, in fact, and then these houses are com- 
pletely surrounded by water. One of these big 
freshets occurred some ten years ago, and another 
a few years previous, when the west section of the 
lower, or Concord bridge, was carried down stream. 
But this does not deter people from building along 
the line of the street, and in recent years a number 
of new and desirable homes have been erected, and 
there is room for more. 

Near the Junction of Hall and Water Streets, or 
situated on the triangular piece of land bounded 
by Hall. Water and Hammond Streets, stands the 
old Eolfe mansion, built by Col. Benjamin Kolfe 
nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, or in the 
year 1764. It is a good and well preserved speci- 
men of the old style houses of the colonial period, — 

The good old Colony times 
When we lived under the king. 

A good picture of it, before it was enlarged for 
the use of the Rolfe and Rumford Asylum, is to 
be seen on page 108 of the new "History of Con- 
cord." Here Colonel Rolfe lived for a few years 
after his marriage to Sarah, the eldest daughter of 
Rev. Timothy Walker, the first minister of the 
town. After his decease, his widow married Benja- 
min Thompson, a schoolmaster, who came hither 

2 



18 Wayside Jottings 

from Woburn, ]\Iass., to teach the young idea how 
to shoot, and who afterwards became famous as 
Count Rumford. His life is an interesting and 
eventful one and is well told in a volume of six 
hundred and eighty pages, written by Dr. George 
E. Ellis of Boston. There is no space in these 
"Jottings" to go into any particulars respecting 
him. Suffice it to say that his cafeer in Concord, 
then known as Rumford, was an unpopular one, 
and coming here as he did about the time that our 
unpleasantness began with the Mother Country, 
with which he was suspected of being a sympa- 
thizer, he came to the conclusion that his room was 
more desired by the people of the town than his 
company. In November, 1774, he took French leave 
of the town, to avoid being mobbed, between two 
days, and never set foot on our soil again. There 
is no doubt that afterwards he would have liked 
to enter the Continental Army, and he would have 
made a splendid officer. As Doctor Ellis says: 
"There was one set of men whom he could never 
conciliate, who mistrusted his purposes and cast 
upon him lowering looks as they met him about 
the camp in Cambridge. They were the general 
and field officers from New Hampshire, who looked 
upon him as a dandy and an upstart, at least, if 
not also at heart a traitor. They would not associ- 
ate with him, still less confide in him. ... If 
the people of Concord (Rumford) and the jealous 
regimental officers of New Hampshire were respon- 
sible for depriving the patriot cause of an effective 



Wayside Jottings 19 

military or executive servant, they may claim credit 
for furnishing Europe with a very eminent and 
practically useful philosopher." Count Rumford's 
early life was made unpleasant on account of this 
unfounded jealousy, and his last days were made 
unhappy by an unfortunate second marriage to 
Madame Lavoisier, a French lady. 

Here, then, to this old home his daughter, the 
Countess of Rumford, came, after passing a few 
years with her father in Europe, in the month of 
July, 1844, and lived here till December 2, 1852, 
when she died, in the chamber where she was born, 
in her seventy-ninth year. It may be truthfully 
affirmed that if there had been no Count Rumford, 
who was blessed with wealth and also with a dis- 
position to use it for the benefit of others, there 
would have been no Rolfe and Rumford orphan 
asylum in Concord, on the banks of the Merrimack. 

IV. 

At the .junction of South Main, Water and AYest 
Streets, we pass, on the last leg of our ramble, an 
old landmark, one of the remaining old Concord 
taverns, the other one being the Washington House 
at the North End. It was generally known in its 
palmy days as "Butters' Tavern," and is the oldest 
of these two, having been built in the year 1780, 
and was never painted, save by the weather brush 
of time. Henry McFarland, in his interesting 
chapter, in the new ''History of Concord," on 



20 Wayside Jottings 

"Canals, Stage Lines and Taverns," says: "Dur- 
ing the years of teaming, boating and staging, it 
held a desirable location and was a thriving inn. 
Its landlords were Samuel Butters, 1780-1811; 
Timothy Butters, 1811-1814; John Carr, 1814- 
1822 ; Joshua Lynch, 1823-1829 ; George Saltmarsh, 
1830 ; William Manley Carter, and Carter & Priest, 
1831-1842; Leonard Bell, 1843; David N. Hoit, 
1844^1845. In its later years it was known as the 
'Concord Railroad House.' It was from 'Butters' 
Hiir that the coming of President Monroe, on July 
17, 1817, was announced by a salute by Capt. 
Richard Herbert's Concord artillery company, as 
he passed Concord bridge, and on through Main 
Street to the "Washington House, kept then by 
Lemuel Barker, where he was entertained in a royal 
manner by the town authorities of Concord. But- 
ters' Tavern had an unbroken record of sixty-five 
years as a place of entertainment for man and 
beast. ' ' 

Public transportation in the olden times, as is 
well known, was carried on by the various stage 
lines that converged in Concord, and a multitude 
of teams was also required to transport all kinds 
of freight up and down the Merrimack Valley. 
The old taverns were the favorite stopping places 
for the teamsters over night; and Butters' Tavern 
seems to have been one of them. Some years ago, 
in conversation with William Carter, son of Manley 
Carter, a popular landlord in the thirties, he gave 
an account of the customs of the travelling public 



Wayside Jottings 21 

in those days. Sometimes there would be as many 
as forty teams that stopped there over night. A 
good deal of accommodation was shown the teams- 
ters, as some of them would bring their "grub" 
along with them, and were privileged to eat it in 
the bar or dining room, paying for their lodging 
and the baiting of their teams. Those who pat- 
ronized the full "menu" paid fifty cents for 
supper, lodging and breakfast. This included a 
cigar and a glass of rum. During the open season 
these teams furnished a good share of the freight 
for the canal boats, that started from the boating 
house near the Concord bridge on their trip down 
the river, through the Middlesex canal, from Lowell 
to Boston ; and getting freight from the boats on 
their return trip. In the winter, of course, this 
means of communication was suspended during the 
ice embargo, and then a long line of two-horse pung 
sleighs, painted red, loaded with produce from the 
north country and Vermont would pass down over 
the Londonderry turnpike to the "Hub," loaded 
down on their return with groceries and other sup- 
plies that were needed in the homes of the farmers. 
Country taverns in those days got their custom 
mainly from this source, and jolly times were wit- 
nessed within their walls when the teamsters tarried 
over night. 

We continue our ramble along the west side of 
South IMain Street, and we come to a mechanical 
industry that has done more to build up the South 
End than any other in this section of the city, 



22 Wayside Jottings 

which is now known as the Abbot-Downing Com- 
pany. The fame of this carriage manufactory is 
world-wide, and its products are A No. 1 in quality. 
The sign over the main entrance, on which is in- 
scribed the dates 1813-1873. indicates the year 
when Lewis Downing commenced operations in this 
line of business, and also the year that the Abbot- 
Do\\Tiing Company was formed. Downing was a 
pioneer in the carriage and coach business in Con- 
cord; afterwards J. Stephens Abbot and sons suc- 
ceeded him at the old stand, Mr. Downing and his 
two sons carrying on the business farther up on 
Main Street, nearly opposite the Phenix Hotel. It 
would be interesting to know the number of vehicles 
of all kinds that have been made at this plant and 
distributed far and wide. If the pianofortes that 
the Chickerings of Boston have made in the eighty- 
three years since they commenced business (nearly 
110,000), if placed end to end would reach from 
Boston to Portland, no doubt the vehicles made 
here in ninety-three years would reach from Con- 
cord to Portland and perhaps some miles beyond. 
On April 15, 1868, a train of thirty platform cars 
pulled out of Concord, on which were loaded thirty 
stage coaches, destined for the overland mail route 
to California. It was a sight that was never seen 
before or since in this city. A photograph was 
taken of this train, which adorns the walls of the 
office of the Abbot-Downing Company. Concord 
could ill afford to spare this company from its lines 
of industries, for it has been one of the old stand- 



Wayside Jottings 23 

bys that has done its part to promote the prosperity 
of our city. 

South ]\Iain Street, years ago, more particularly 
the west side of it, was one of the principal resi- 
dential streets in Concord. The houses that line 
that side of the street are home-like, and are well 
set up and back from the street, with a wide side- 
walk and yard between them and the roadway that 
follows the ridge of land north to Fayette Street. 
To add to the attraction of this street, a row of 
noble elms, some of them all of a hundred years 
old. afford plenty of shade. Here have lived and 
died some of Concord's best citizens; and there is 
rather a mournful interest connected with the fact 
of the great changes that have taken place in 
these homes — whole families having been removed, 
mainly by death, and there are but few of the old 
residents of fifty years ago that are left. Suppose 
we turn back the tide of time to the years of the 
fifties and bring to remembrance, if we can, those 
who were then dwelling in these homes. Just 
north of the Abbot-Downing Company's plant was 
the home of Le^vis Downing, who came to Concord 
from Lexington, Mass., in 1813. aud in the month 
of November of that year completed his first ' ' Con- 
cord wagon. ' ' every part of it having been made by 
hand labor. With him later lived J. C. A. Hill, 
his son-in-law. There was no Perley Street then 
laid out and on the site of the Catholic Church 
stood a cottage owned by Mrs. Merrill. Next was 
the large house occupied by James Goodridge and 



24 Wayside Jottings 

Stephen Swett; and on the south corner of South 
Main and Thorndike Streets was the home of "Wil- 
lard Williams, one of the foremen at the Abbot 
carriage manufactory. It was also distinguished 
as the abode of Gen. Franklin Pierce when he 
received the nomination of president of the United 
States in the summer of 1852. Of course, he was 
the most prominent resident on the line of the 
street, and regarded as one of the. ablest lawyers in 
the state. New Hampshire ought to honor him 
with a statue in the state-house park, and perhaps 
some day he will be thus honored. On the north 
corner of Thorndike Street was the home of Charles 
Hutchins, and next north of that George Hutchins, 
brothers — two of the old-time successful merchants 
of Concord. It was a peculiarly sad fate that 
befell George Hutchins and his wife, in being 
burned to death on a steamboat on the Ohio River 
in the fall of 1868, as they were journeying down 
the river to New Orleans to visit their son, Maj. 
B. T. Hutchins. The double brick dwelling house 
on the south side of Wentworth Avenue has been 
built since the years we are considering; the house 
that stands in the rear of this avenue was moved 
from the line of the street some years ago, and was 
the home of Abraham Prescott, the pioneer in this 
state in the manufacture of bass and double bass 
viols; and the double tenement to the south of it 
on this avenue was formerly the shop where these 
musical instruments were made and sent out into 
the world. The house next north, known as the 



Wayside Jottings 25 

Joseph Wentworth residence, has been built since 
the fifties ; it was built by Willard Williams, where 
he also lived, and with whom General Pierce re- 
sided, after becoming an ex-president, and where 
he died on October 8, 1869. Perhaps we should 
state that after Mr. Williams moved from the house 
on the corner of Thorndike Street to tliis house. 
Dr. J. H. Eames purchased it and lived there for 
a number of years; also for some years. Father 
Barry made his home in the rectory of the Catholic 
Church, till his tragic death in November. 1900. 
We are, however, considering mainly the dwellers 
along the line of the street in the fifties. 

North of the Wentworth house was the home of 
Samuel Fletcher, an old-time Concord lawyer ; 
afterwards the house was remodelled and occupied 
by Judge Ira A. Eastman, and later by John M. 
Hill ; on the south corner of Concord, formerly 
Cross Street, resided IMrs. Chase and Mrs. Kendall, 
sisters, Mrs. Chase afterwards marrying A. J. Pres- 
eott, he living there till his decease. Rev. Henry 
E. Parker, then pastor of the South Church, 
boarded in the family for a number of years. 

On the north corner of Concord Street, standing 
on the spacious grounds now owned by Hon. B. A. 
Kimball, was a long wooden block, which at first 
was occupied as the ''Thompsonian Infirmary"; 
afterwards it was converted into tenements. Hon. 
J. H. Gallinger, in his interesting chapter, in the 
new History of Concord, on the "Medical Profes- 
sion," gives an account of the peculiar course of 



26 Wayside Jottings 

treatment that was practiced at this "infirmary," 
to cure the ills that flesh is heir to. The methods 
mainly seemed to be to steam the disease out of the 
patient^ and were successful, either in curing or 
killing him. It was one of the fads of that day ; a 
course of treatment, the antithesis of the "water 
cure," practiced in later years in the establish- 
ment of that name, located on the corner of North 
Main and Center Streets, now known as the Com- 
mercial House. Doctor Gallinger, in his article, re- 
lates the story of a good old orthodox minister, who 
resided in a neighboring town, and who made 
an exchange with one of his Concord brethren, 
arriving at the infirmary one Saturday night, suf- 
fering from a severe cold. He asked Doctor 
Thompson if he could get it out of him, so that he 
would be able to preach the next day, and was 
somewhat shocked when Doctor Thompson informed 
him that he "could steam hell and damnation out 
of him." Where Mr. Kimball lives in his beauti- 
ful and commodious home, which has been com- 
pletely remodelled, dwelt George B. Chandler, who, 
in the fifties was one of Concord's prominent bank- 
ers ; next was the home of Peter Sanborn, for some 
years state treasurer, filling that position, in the 
years of the Civil "War, and at a time when large 
sums of money passed through his hands; and on 
the south corner of Thompson Street, probably 
named after Doctor Thompson, lived John F. 
Brown, who was the proprietor then of the Frank- 
lin book store. 



Wayside Jottings 27 

On the north corner of Thompson Street dwelt 
Theodore French, at that time retired from busi- 
ness, who, in the earlier years of his life, was 
identified with the ]\Ierrimack Boating Company; 
and the double house, just north, was occupied by 
Rev. C. W. Flanders, pastor of the First Baptist 
Church, afterwards by Rev. B. P. Stone, the editor 
of the Congregational Journal. In the north part 
lived Gen. Joseph Low, the first mayor of Con- 
cord. ^ATiere St. Mary's School is pleasantly situ- 
ated was the home of Gov. Joseph A. Gilmore, 
afterwards of Judge Asa Fowler; it was built by 
Judge Hall Burgin. The Farrington brothers, 
who came from Hopkinton, lived in the double 
house on the north corner of Fayette Street. This 
and the General Low house style of architecture, 
in their day, were somewhat pretentious, being con- 
structed in a better stj^le than the common run of 
houses, and have a substantial appearance. They 
were designed and built by John Leach, an old- 
time Concord architect and builder, who planned 
and built, if we mistake not, the first Unitarian 
Church which was destro^^ed by fire, and the First 
Baptist Church, w^hich has survived all the other 
old churches. In the last years of his life, ]\[r. 
Leach built the brick house on the northeast corner 
of South State and Fayette Streets, where, we be- 
lieve, he died. 

The Doctor Smart house, that stood on the site 
of the Huntwood Terrace, and which was recently 
torn down and removed to South Street, Avas moved 



28 Wayside Jottings 

from North State Street, standing between the 
First Baptist and Universalist Churches. Its re- 
cent place was on the site of the shop of Timothy 
Chandler, the famous clockmaker, some of whose 
clocks are now probably ticking in the farm houses 
of New Hampshire. Next was the house where for 
some years Mr. Chandler lived, and at the time 
we allude, was occupied, we think, by the Neal 
family, one member of which is David L. Neal of 
the Statesman. This house was torn down, or re- 
moved, when J. Stephens Abbot erected his fine 
residence which took the place of his old home and 
was considered at the time the finest residence in 
Concord. On the adjoining lot on the north was 
the home of Franklin Evans, an old-time Concord 
merchant, and the last male survivor living on the 
west side of this street. Next was the home of 
James S. Norris, Concord's old-time baker and con- 
fectioner, successor to Ebenezer Symmes, who re- 
sided in the same house that Mr. Norris afterwards 
lived in, and which was moved to the lower end of 
South Spring Street, to make way for a better 
dwelling. The old bakery came next, which was 
burned at the time of the South Church fire, as was 
the old house occupied by Dr. W. H. Smart, which 
stood next to the church. 

We have now arrived at the Acquilla Block, the 
starting point of our six-mile ramble, situated on 
the site of the first South Church. It is probably 
the busiest, as well as the noisiest corner, on the 
line of Main Street, as it is the point of transfer 




LoDkiiii.' up l'li-'a?aiit Street 







fit i 
" " ; 




'iffi^aa&i» 



l.ocikiiiK up Main Sticft IKmi I'lcasant 



Wayside Jottings 29 

and departure of the patrons of the electrics, that 
start on their trips every fifteen minutes, to and 
from North Main, South j\Iain, West End and 
South End, beginning early in the morning and 
continuing till late at night. How the dwellers in 
the apartments near this corner manage to obtain 
a rest is not known to the writer; probably they 
have got used to the noise, and would miss it if it 
should cease. 

Fifty years usually make a great change in the 
dwellers on the line of any of the streets of Con- 
cord, and the west side of South Main Street is no 
exception to this rule. The writer has compared 
notes with some of the life-long residents on this 
street, and he finds of the residents of fifty years 
ago but few remain. Of those who have lived here, 
in the homes of their childhood, this length of time, 
we may name Mrs. J. C. A. Hill, daughter of Lewis 
Downing; Mrs. C. C. Lund, daughter of Theodore 
French; Miss Lizzie Evans, daughter of Franklin 
Evans; James H. Goodridge, son of James Good- 
ridge ; Peter Sanborn, Jr., son of Peter Sanborn ; 
James C. Norris, son of James S. Norris, who has 
recently occupied the home of his father. Some 
of the members of the families mentioned are living 
in town or elsewhere. These include George D. B. 
Prescott, son of Abraham Prescott, who lives on 
Pillsbury Street; Mrs. G. W. Crockett, daughter 
of James S. Norris, who lives on Pleasant Street; 
David L. Neal, and his sister, Mrs. H. L. Rand, 
children of Capt. David Neal, who live on North 



30 Wayside Jottings 

State Street ; Edward A. Abbot, and his sister, Mrs. 
Gerald Wyman, children of J. Stephens Abbot, 
who live in Boston ; Prof. J. H. Gilmore, living 
in Rochester, N. Y. ; Frank W. Gilmore, living in 
Hopkinton ; John L. Gilmore, living in Boston ; 
Addison Gilmore, living in "Warner, sons of Gov. 
Joseph A. Gilmore ; Rev. C. L. Hutchins, son of 
George Hutchins, living in Massachusetts. Possibly 
there are others. There were some good-sized 
families on the line of this street fifty years ago, 
notably the Hutchins, Preseott, Low and Gilmore 
families. 

V. 

On page 48, volume 1, of the new "History of 
Concord," there is a plan of Main Street as it ap- 
peared in the year 1827. As its name imports, it 
was the principal street in the village, serving both 
as a business and a residential street. In fact, 
there were no streets then laid out parallel to it, 
save South Street, which is not exactly parallel. 
Leading out of Main Street, on the west, were 
seven other streets, viz., Penacook, Franklin, Wash- 
ington, Center, School, Pleasant and West. This 
plan also shows that the territory lying between 
Pleasant and West Streets was mainly divided up 
into small farms, similar, probably, in extent to 
the "Eleven Lots" lying on Hall Street, between 
the Rolfe and Rumford Asylum and the Bow line. 
The names of the owners of these farms as given, 
were Chandler, Bullard, Harris, Thorndike, Do^^ti- 



Wayside Jottings 31 

ing and Shute. These farms extended as far back 
as South Street, while the owners resided on the 
east line of the farms on what is now known as 
South Main Street; and thus whatever other busi- 
ness they may have had, it was carried on in con- 
nection with that of farming. Probably a good 
share of the residents on the line of I\Iain Street, 
both North and South, carried on farming in a 
small way with their other business, and were the 
owners of sections of intervale and forest land. 

Frances M. Abbott, in her interesting chapter in 
the new ' ' History of Concord, " on " Domestic Cus- 
toms and Social Life," says: ''Main Street was 
slow in making, but there were early indications 
that it w^as to be the spinal column of the future 
town. It was formally laid out June 23, 1785. 
As originally planned, it would have been ten rods 
wide, but it was finally decided to contract it to its 
present dimensions, six rods, or about one hundred 
feet, which makes an ample thoroughfare. There 
is a tradition that the spacious Roby house, 207 
North Main Street, built by Benjamin Kimball, and 
now occupied by his granddaughter, Mrs. Cyrus M. 
Murdock and Miss Lucy H. Kimball, and the Her- 
bert house, 224 North Main Street, both of which 
stand well back from the street, were intended to 
be set near the line of the proposed road. If Main 
Street had been built to these boundaries, few 
avenues or boulevards in the country would have 
surpassed its generous breadth." There were no 
sidewalks along Main Street for some years after it 



32 Wayside Jottings 

was laid out, and pedestrians had to take to the road. 
Mr. Hadley, in the new "History of Concord," 
says that the Rev. Dr. McFarland, when pastor of 
the North Church, was wont at the coming of the 
first sleighing of each year to promulgate a rule 
from the pulpit in these words: "Persons who 
drive in sleighs will please keep to the right, and 
let those who are afoot have the .middle of the 
road." 

Pleasant Street, also known by the name of the 
' ' Hopkinton Road, ' ' was probably the most traveled 
highway leading out of Main Street. It was the 
main highway to Hopkinton. Dunbarton, North 
Bow, Weare and other towns beyond. It was laid 
out of a generous width, and for years has had the 
reputation of being the best street for a drive in 
town. In most directions, notably in that of West 
and East Concord, there are railroad crossings to 
be looked out for, and the cars for some distance 
are in close proximity to the line of these high- 
ways; but on Pleasant Street, save for the short 
distance from Main Street to Liberty Street, which 
has been invaded by an electric railway, there are 
none of these annoyances. Recent improvements 
in the macadamizing of the roadway, from Fruit 
Street to Millville, have made it a boulevard over 
which it is a pleasure to drive, especially in the 
early spring months, when other roads are nothing 
but mud. A good sidewalk, a section of which is 
of concrete, extends from the junction of Pleasant 
Street with Main Street to the iron bridge that 



Wayside Jottings 33 

spans Turkey River at St. Paul's School, and this 
sidewalk is all of two miles in extent. 

Not only is Pleasant Street noted for its good 
roadway and sidewalk, but also for the various 
objects of interest that greet the eye as one passes 
along its way. Suppose we take this ramble out 
on the line of this old highway and if we find 
enough of interest to note down as we pass along, 
we may, before it is finished, wander over into the 
old to^^T^ of Hopkinton, and finish our ramble at 
the Perkins Inn, the well known hostelry in Hop- 
kinton village, which still retains its old character 
for quiet and comfort, a village which has a Rip 
Van Winkle air, where Sundays and week-days are 
much alike ; a characteristic which, in the opinion 
of the writer, will only be changed by the advent 
of Dr. Holmes' "broomstick train;" this of course 
to run out from the "Hub" of New Hampshire. 

We start, as we did on our first ramble, from the 
Acquilla building at the junction of Pleasant and 
Main Streets. There is one thing about Pleasant 
Street that makes it a different street from others 
in town, in that upon its line are situated most of 
the philanthropic institutions that have been built 
in our city. The New Hampshire Hospital for the 
Insane, starting in the forties from small begin- 
nings, having its origin, it is said, in the legal 
taking off of Prescott, a demented man, has in- 
creased from year to year, till its buildings cover 
a large space on one of the finest locations in town. 
In fact, when this institution was located here Con- 

3 



34 Wayside Jottings 

cord lost one of its best, if not the best section for 
residences. Opposite its grounds, on the north side 
of the street, is the Old Ladies' Home, opened in 
1876, the centennial year of our nation's history. 
It is one of the best institutions of its kind in the 
state, and its usefulness will increase as the years 
go by. The additions recently made to this home 
have added much to its external appearance and 
to the comfort of its inmates. It stands on the site 
of the home of George Kent, one of Concord's old- 
time lawyers and bankers, where George Thompson, 
the English abolitionist, stopped on his first visit 
to Concord in the year 1835. ]\Ir. Thompson came 
perilously near being mobbed, and only escaped by 
taking French leave of the town. On his second 
visit to Concord, in the year 1884, he met with a 
very different reception, and gave an eloquent 
address in Eagle Hall, before a large audience, com- 
posed of our best citizens. Visiting Concord in 
company with Mr. Thompson was John G. "Whit- 
tier, the Quaker poet. He was the guest of Hon. 
William A. Kent, the father of George Kent, whose 
residence was on the site of the South Church, 
farther down on Pleasant Street. INIr. Whittier 
got off with a pelting from the mob of stones, dirt 
and eggs; of course they were rotten ones. It is 
said that in after years he found much fun in re- 
ferring to his Concord experience, and was fond 
of exhibiting the egg-stained coat that he wore on 
that eventful evening. It was probably Mr. Whit- 
tier's first and last visit to Concord. It was the 




Centeiininl Ilimie for the Ased 




Odd Follows- Hon 



Wayside Jottings 35 

most disgraceful event that ever occurred on this 
street. And, by the way, George Kent was a 
brother of Edward Kent of Bangor, Me., who in 
the "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" campaign of 1840. 
was elected governor of the Pine Tree State, and 
whose election was announced in the famous and 
expressive couplet : 

Maine went hell bent 
For Governor Kent. 

Then there is the Odd Fellows' Home, another 
institution which has been the means of helping 
the old and needy members of that fraternity in 
their journey on the down hill of life. The Merri- 
mack County jail is not exactly on the line of this 
street, though nearly so. It is more of a penal 
than a philanthropic institution, and will probably 
be a necessity so long as human nature is what it 
is, or till the dawn of the millennium. 

It must have been an oak grove that William 
Cullen Bryant had in mind when he declared in 
one of his poems that ' ' The groves were God 's first 
temples." Though the oak grove on the line of 
Pleasant Street, standing on the grounds of the 
Odd Fellows' Home, has been thinned out some- 
what by the cutting down of the decayed trees, yet 
it is still a beautiful grove and we doubt if there 
is a finer one in Concord. Here, as is well known, 
is where Gen. Franklin Pierce planned to build a 
residence in which to spend the last years of his 
life. "Man proposes, and God disposes," is the 
old adage, and the tragic death of an only son in 



36 Wayside Jottings 

a railway accident in Andover, Mass., in the fall 
of 1852, shortly before General Pierce was elected 
president of the United States, changed all of these 
plans. This grove fronts on the east end of the 
boulevard, which Concord would probably never 
had but for the public spirit evinced by Mary 
Baker G. Eddy, in bearing a good part of the ex- 
pense of its construction. One result of this im- 
provement was the re-laying out of the street, near 
this point, so that there are two reverse curves in 
it, which adds to its beauty. There is a line of 
fence in front of the grounds of Pleasant View, the 
home of Mrs. Eddy, part of it being of iron, and 
a part of substantial wooden rails and stone posts, 
that suggests durability as well as appropriateness. 
Such an expensive line of fence is seldom seen out- 
side the limits of the compact part of a town or 
city. 

The view from a point on the line of this street, 
to the east of Pleasant View, and which, by the 
way, is rightly named, is a fine one. There is an 
open stretch of country to the east, south and west, 
so that at least parts of eights towns in INIerrimack 
and Hillsborough counties are to be seen. These 
include the hills of Chichester, Pembroke, Epsom 
and Allenstown to the east, and Bow and Dunbar- 
ton to the south and west; while elevations in 
Weare and Francestown are also visible. From 
"Rum Hill," an elevation in the rear of Prof. John 
F. Kent's residence, a more extensive view is 
obtained and probably as many as a dozen towns 
are visible. 




state Library 




Tlie Old State House 



Wayside Jottings 37 

VI. 

There were seven ' ' standing ' ' garrisons and three 
temporary ones erected for the protection of the 
inhabitants of the town of Rumford in the years 
1733-1746, from the incursions of the Indians. 
One of these was located near the junction of the 
old Hopkinton Road, now known as Pleasant Street, 
and the highway leading to Dunbarton. The in- 
scription on the granite tablet, placed on or near 
the site of this garrison, is as follows : 

Site of 

Rumford Garrison 
No. 4 

Around House of 

JoNA Eastman 

To Which Were Assigned 

May 15, 1746 

Eight Settlers 
With Their Families. 

The sites of the other garrisons have similar 
tablets, and their locations were as follows : The 
Rev. Timothy Walker Garrison on the east side of 
North Main Street, near the residence of Joseph B. 
Walker; the Lieut. Jeremiah Stickney Garrison, 
on the east side of North ]\Iain Street, near the 
site of the new Stickney block, near Bridge Street ; 
the Timothy Walker, Jr., Garrison, on the west 



38 ^y ay side Jottings 

side of South Main Street, near its junction with 
Thorndike Street; the Deacon Joseph Hall Gar- 
rison, near the junction of Hall and Water Streets ; 
the Henry Lovejoy Garrison, at the West Parish, 
on the Levi Hutchins farm ; the Capt. Ebenezer 
Eastman Garrison, near the site of the railroad 
station, East Concord. These were the "stand- 
ing" or permanent garrisons. The three others, 
or temporary garrisons, were the Edward Abbott 
Garrison, on the corner of North Main and Mont- 
gomery Streets, the house still standing ; the James 
Osgood Garrison, at the junction of North ]\Iain 
and Depot Streets, on the site of the First National 
Bank ; and the George Abbott Garrison, on Fayette 
Street, near its junction with South Main Street. 
It would seem that the different sections of the 
town were well protected from Indian attacks. 
When the noble red man of the forest was on the 
war path for scalps, the settlers and their families, 
belonging to these respective garrisons, left their 
own houses and repaired thither. ]\Ien labored in 
the field in parties, with guns at hand, and not 
unfrequently with a mounted guard. Three alarm 
guns from a fort announced approaching Indians, 
and put the settlement on its guard. 

These garrisons greatly contributed to the safety 
of the first residents of Rumford, and were a good 
illustration of the old adage that ' ' an ounce of pre- 
vention is worth a pound of cure." For without 
this protection they would, in all probability, have 
been wiped off the face of the earth in the in- 



Wayside Jottings 39 

cursions of the St. Francis Indians, and the town 
would have been the scene of a wholesale massacre, 
before which the Bradley massacre would have 
paled into insignificance. The writer is not aware 
that these Canadian Indians ever made an attack 
on any of these garrisons. The Indian 's character- 
istics were cunning and deceit, treachery and re- 
venge, and acted on the old adage that "discretion 
was the better part of valor," consequently their 
usual method of attack was by ambush, and not on 
a garrison, where they would meet with a warm 
reception. Though there were exceptions, of 
course, yet in the times of the colonies, at least, 
General Sherman was not far from right when 
he affirmed that "the only good Indian was a dead 
one." 

In volume 1, page 171, of the new "History of 
Concord," there is a picture of the Kev. Timothy 
Walker Garrison at the North End, which is prob- 
ably a good illustration of the other garrisons in 
the settlement. It represents the people issuing 
forth from it on Sunday for the purpose of "goin' 
to meetin'." Rev. Timothy Walker is in the van, 
with his gun in one hand and the Bible in the 
other, the men armed, and acting as guard to the 
women of the company. When they arrived at the 
log meeting house, itself a fort, near the corner of 
North Main and Chapel Streets, the custom was to 
stack their muskets where they could readily get 
them, and they performed their worship with 
powderhorn and bullet pouch slung over their 



40 Wayside Jottings 

shoulders, while ]\Ir. Wall^er stood his gun, said to 
be the best in town, beside him in the pulpit, while 
he preached the old theology. Perhaps, like the 
Pilgrim Fathers: 

' ' They shook the depths of the desert gloom with 
their hymns of lofty cheer. ' ' 

But these ' ' depths ' ' were not shaken by the sing- 
ing of a quartette choir, with an organ accompani- 
ment. And it is certain that they could not, in 
their prayers, express their thankfulness that they 
could worship God "with none to molest or make 
afraid." It is hard to realize that such a state 
of affairs existed here one hundred and sixty years 
ago. 

This picture is also a good representation of how 
the Walker house looked surrounded by a fort. 
It was built of hewn logs, laid flat on each other, 
with ends fitted for the purpose and inserted in 
grooves, set in large posts erected at each corner. 
The walls of the fort were built to the height of 
the roof of the dwelling around which it was 
reared, and was surmounted at two or more corners 
with sentinel boxes. 

Indian lore is quite interesting, though it is some- 
times rather grewsome reading, as those who have 
read Theodore Roosevelt's "Winning of the West" 
will readily admit. The government of the Indians, 
the writer understands, at least of those who in- 
habited New England, was of a patriarchal form; 
that is, some family commonly took a precedence 
over the others ; the oldest son having absolute gov- 



Wayside Jottings 41 

eminent over the region inhabited by a tribe, he 
receiving the title of sachem or sagamore. Those 
"noble red men of the forest," Passaconaway, 
Wonolancet and Tahanto, were sachems of the 
Pennycooks. They "were true and tried friends 
of the English in prosperity and adversity," and 
no garrisons were ever needed for the protection 
of the early settlers in the plantation of Penny- 
cook and the town of Rumford from any attack 
from this tribe of Indians. 

VII. 

Suppose we retrace our steps for a half a mile 
or more, from the site of Rumford Garrison, No. 4, 
on our ramble towards Hopkinton village, till we 
reach the "Bradley monument," so called, on which 
is briefly told the fate of five of the inhabitants of 
Rumford, the most tragic event that ever occurred 
in the old town nearly one hundred and sixty-one 
years ago. Though this event is probably as famil- 
iar as a twice-told tale to life-long residents of Con- 
cord, we are not writing for their enlightment ; but 
possibly to some of the younger generation of our 
readers, now coming on the stage of action, it may 
be of interest. 

As is well known, on the morning of August 11, 
1746 (old style), eight of the inhabitants of Rum- 
ford started out for a visit to Rumford Garrison, 
No. 4, near which the father of one of the number, 
Seaborn Peters, lived. Their names were Samuel 



42 Wayside Jottings 

Bradley, Jonathan Bradley, John Bean, John Liif- 
kin, Alexander Roberts, William Stiekney, Daniel 
Gilman and Obadiah Peters. They started from 
the home of Samuel Bradley, where M. Hazen 
Bradley, a great-grandson of Samuel Bradley, now 
lives (since deceased), passed down to the highway 
now known as Franklin Street; thence along this 
road to the highway now known as High Street; 
thence along this road out to and on the * ' old Hop- 
kinton Road," until they reached the vicinity of 
the Bradley monument, when they fell into an 
ambush of the St. Francis tribe of Indians, whose 
numbers were estimated from sixty to one hundred. 
The first five of this little company were killed and 
scalped ; Stiekney and Roberts were taken prisoners 
and carried to Canada, and only Gilman escaped 
to tell the tale. As Indians were seen prowling 
around a day or two previously, it has always 
seemed to the writer that these men were some- 
what careless in going out to the Eastman Garrison 
in so small a force and in such a happy-go-lucky 
manner. But those who still believe in the old 
doctrine of foreordination can readily come to the 
conclusion that it was so to be, and no human fore- 
sight availed to change the course of events. There 
is not space in these "Jottings" to give a detailed 
account of this sad affair, which the younger read- 
ers of the book will find on pages 175-178 of the 
"History of Concord." 

In "New Hampshire As It Is," written by Edwin 
A. Charlton and published in 1855. it is stated that 



Wayside Jottings 43 

' ' a granite monument was erected on the spot where 
Bradley and his associates fell, by Richard Bradley, 
a grandson of Samuel Bradley." This statement 
as to the exact location of the monument is prob- 
ably incorrect, for in the "History of Concord" it 
is stated that ' ' a granite shaft was, because of diffi- 
culty in obtaining the desired site, erected a few 
rods east of the scene of the massacre, and on the 
opposite side of the road." The exact "spot" is 
probably on what is now "Pleasant View" farm, 
owned by Mary Baker G. Eddy, near a brook that 
aforetime ran through this tract of land, but which 
is now a covered drain. 

That there was some desperate fighting on the 
fateful August morning is seen in the statement 
that Jonathan Bradley fought for dear life, and 
refused to give or take quarter, probably preferring 
to die than to be taken prisoner by any of the St. 
Francis tribe of Indians, whose tender mercies were 
cruel. The result of the fight was about even, so 
far as fatalities were concerned, as four Indians 
were killed and two mortally wounded. 

Upon the occasion of the dedication of this monu- 
ment, Augilst 22, 1837 (new style), interesting 
exercises were held, in which the governor of the 
state and other prominent men participated. Asa 
McFarland, then editor of the Statesman, gave an 
address, and a hymn was sung, written by Rev. 
John Pierpont of Boston, grandfather of J. Pier- 
pont Morgan. Mr. Pierpont was a poet of no mean 



^4 Wayside Jottings 

repiTte, and could write poetry as well as his grand- 
son can make money. The hymn read as follows : 
Not now, O God, beneath the trees 

That shade this vale at night's cold noon 
Do Indian war-cries load the breeze. 

Or wolves sit howling at the moon. 

The foes, the fears our fathers felt 

Have with our fathers passed away; 
And where in death's dark shade they knelt 

We come to praise Thee and to pray. 

We praise Thee that Thou plantedst here 

And mad'st Thy heavens drop down their dew, — 

We pray that shooting from their stem 
We long may flourish where they grew. 

And, Father, leave us not alone; 

Thou hast been, and art still, our trust. 
Be Thou our fortress till our own 

Shall mingle with our fathers' dust. 

Continuing our ramble by the tablet that marks 
the site of the Eastman Garrison, we pass within 
almost a stone's throw of St. Paul's School, on our 
left, most of the buildings being on the line of the 
old Dunbarton road. It is beautifully situated, 
and is one of the best institutions of its kind in the 
country. Fifty years have brought marked changes 
in this school, from the time when Dr. Henry A. 
Coit commenced his work here in 1858 with three 
scholars, in the summer home of Dr. George C. 
Shattuck of Boston, to the time when now three 
hundred or more boys are in attendance. We also 
pass by Millville Cemetery, where Doctor Coit is 



Wayside Jottings 45 

quietly resting after his useful life, his works fol- 
lowing him in the lives of the St. Paul's scholars 
who are scattered all over our land. If there was 
ever a man who lived on this planet who followed 
the example of the Divine Master in ''going about 
doing good," Doctor Coit was that man. Resi- 
dents of Hopkinton and Dunbarton, as well as in 
Concord, will bear testimony to his visits of mercy 
and good will in homes where sorrow and death 
had entered. 

VIII. 

North INIain Street, between Pleasant and Bridge 
Streets, has been substantially rebuilt since the mid- 
way years of the last century. If an old resident 
here in those years should re-visit Concord and take 
a ramble along this street, he would hardly know 
where to place himself. Fire has been the prime 
agent in making this change, as but few buildings 
have been demolished to make way for better ones. 
The big fire of August, 1851, was the starter in 
this change ; it came pretty near being a conflagra- 
tion, and swept away all the blocks and other buikl- 
ings on the east side of the street between the 
Sticloiey block on the north and Low's block on 
the south, and from the line of the street to the 
railroad tracks on the east. It was a clean sweep, 
and North ]Main Street was a sorry sight to behold 
the next morning after the fire. Those were the 
days of the old "hand tubs," and the firemen 
worked at the brakes for dear life and earned every 



46 Wayside Jottings 

penny that they received as pay. "When, as was 
sometimes the case, the water in the reservoirs gave 
out, their occupation, for the time being, at least, 
was gone and they were forced to be unwilling 
spectators of the work of the fire fiend. The ad- 
vent of Lake Penacook water, along with the 
hydrant service and the steam fire engines, changed 
this condition of things and North ]\Iain Street has 
not greatly sufi^ered from the ravages of fire since 
that time. 

Brick and mortar have supplanted the old wooden 
buildings, some of which, from the manner of their 
construction, were termed "ten-footers," so that in 
the whole length of the business part of the street 
there are only three or four wooden buildings re- 
maining on the west side, and one on the east 
side. One of these is the building adjoining the 
]\Iasonic Temple, which remains substantially the 
same in its outside appearance as it did in the 
fifties, when David G. Fuller kept there an assort- 
ment of liquors on sale. In the second story of 
this building was a small hall, where candidates 
were initiated into the mysteries of "Knownothing- 
ism," a political movement in the fifties that helped 
to change the complexion of New Hampshire poli- 
tics, and the change has substantially continued 
till the present day. Then there is the structure, 
now known as the American House, opposite Bridge 
Street, which, in the first years of its existence was 
devoted to business purposes; while in the third 
story was a hall occupied by the Sons of Temper- 




MerriTiiack ('(iimt\ Court House 




U. S. Governincnt Building 



Wayside Jottings 47 

ance. Going along the street, we come to the 
locality known aforetime as "Smoky Hollow." 
The Lyster Brothers have changed for the better 
the appearance of that locality by tearing down 
the unsightly buildings and erecting the Lyster 
block. The Lyster market, which occupies a part 
of this block, is getting to be one of the institutions 
of Concord. A visit to this market, at almost any 
hour of the day, shows that the force of clerks are 
busy attending to the wants of the customers that 
throng thither. 

By far the best and most important improvement 
made in a public building on the line of North 
Main Street is seen in the recent remodeling and 
rebuilding of the Merrimack County court house. 
The old building was of a unique and somewhat 
unusual style of architecture, and was not con- 
sidered "a thing of beauty," which is said to be 
"a joy forever." Just what style of architecture 
it was, the writer is not informed. As it was de- 
signed by Joshua L. Foster, it might be termed the 
Fosterian style. The late Asa McFarland, formerly 
editor of the Statesman, lived on the opposite side 
of the street from the court house, and the writer 
remembers that his criticisms in that paper on the 
style and general appearance of the building were 
not very flattering. It was probably an eyesore to 
him, and as there are no flies on the present struc- 
ture, either in its outward appearance or in its 
internal arrangements, he ought to have lived to 
see it. The location is undoubtedly the best one 



48 Wayside Jottings 

on the line of North Main Street for a public 
building, and the North-Enders, way back in the 
early years of the last century, earnestly desired 
to have the state house located there. If it had 
been, the business part of Main Street would no 
doubt have been in that vicinity, and the North 
End would have retained its original prestige as a 
business center. 

Continuing our ramble a few rods further, to 
the junction of North Main and Chapel Streets, we 
come to a spot that was made famous in the annals 
of the old town by the erection of the first meeting 
house. It was a log house, where the worshipers 
were liable to sudden attacks from hostile Indians, 
and so went to church armed with their guns and 
prepared to repel force with force. It was a good 
example of the "church militant." Like Crom- 
well's Ironsides, "they trusted in God and kept 
their powder dry." A great contrast between the 
past and the present is seen in the fine edifice in 
which the same church organization, the North 
Church, now worships, on the corner of North Main 
and Washington Streets. What a revelation it 
would be if some of the first settlers of Penacook 
could revisit the gliippses of the moon and note the 
changes that have taken place in church and state 
in the old town since they shuffled off this mortal 
coil! They could also contrast the old theology 
with the new. One of the old-time ministers of this 
church was the Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, who for 
forty-two years occupied its pulpit. He was with- 



Wayside Jottings 49 

out doubt the ablest minister in Concord in his 
prime, and the writer used to like to hear him 
preach. His sermons were " meaty," and gave one 
something to think about. Mr. J. 0. Lyford, in 
his chapter in the new "History of Concord" on 
''Church History," says: "Dr. Bouton's min- 
istry was characterized by unity, stability and 
growth. He was not only a faithful minister, but 
a citizen of acknowledged influence during a period 
of growth and prosperity in Concord." And Wil- 
liam E. Chandler, on Old Home Day at Contoocook 
River Park, in August, 1904, pays this tribute to 
Doctor Bouton's memory: "Learned, laborious 
and eloquent, how faithful he was to all the duties 
of life ! How well I recall his welcome presence ; 
with kind and cordial manner and speech." 

Mr. W. E. Curtis' letters in the Chicago Record- 
Herald from Concord, republished in the Monitor, 
are interesting reading, as he is a past master as a 
newspaper correspondent. But he is somewhat off 
his base in his statement that the old North Church 
"was torn down many years ago," although he is 
correct in saying that "it was replaced by a large 
brick structure," namely the Walker schoolhouse. 
It is the writer's recollection that this old church 
went up in flame and smoke on the night of Novem- 
ber 28, 1870; and it is also his recollection that it 
was a splendid sight, though a sad one. The frame 
of the church was of white oak timber, and after 
the boards that covered it had burned away, the 
frame-work, from the sills to the spire, stood out in 



50 Wayside Jottings 

clear relief as any set piece at a Fourth of July 
celebration of fireworks. What an appropriate 
place this old church would have been for the cele- 
bration of Old Home Day ! And what a pity that 
such a structure could not have escaped the de- 
vouring flames ! It stood in the same relation to 
Concord, in its historical associations, as the Old 
South Church does to Boston. Henry McFarland, 
in his "Sixty Years in Concord and Elsewhere." 
says : ' ' There are remaining in New Hampshire 
some better examples of colonial architecture than 
the Old North Church, but it was more dignified 
than many modern religious edifices." 

IX. 

Just across State Street from the site of the Old 
North Church, now occupied by the Walker school- 
house, is the burial ground that has been known for 
years as the ' ' Old North Cemetery. ' ' In the olden 
time it was generally the custom to have the church 
and the cemetery near each other, and probably 
the church was changed from its first location on 
North Main Street so as to be contiguous to this 
"God's Acre," as the ancient Germans termed such 
places. One of the first acts of the proprietors of 
the "Plantation of Penacook," along with the 
erection of a church, was the selection of a suitable 
place for the burial of the dead. It appears from 
the town records that as early as 1730 a committee, 
consisting of Henry Eolfe, John Pecker and John 



Wayside Jottings 51 

Chandler, was appoiutecl to select a plot of land 
on the west side of State Street. About the year 
1850 an addition was made to this cemetery on the 
west, and a few years afterward another addition 
known as the "Minot Enclosure"; and up to the 
year 1860 it was the only cemetery open to Pro- 
testants in the compact part of the city. 

On November 29, 1859, the city council pur- 
chased the well-located and beautiful grounds for 
a new place of burial, which is known as the ' ' Blos- 
som Hill Cemetery." These grounds were placed 
in charge of a committee consisting of George B. 
Chandler, Enos Blake and Joseph B. Walker. 
Under the direction of this committee, aided by the 
taste and skill of John C. Briggs, civil engineer, 
the cemetery was laid out and made ready for its 
consecration, July 13, 1860, when appropriate exer- 
cises tok place in the presence of a large concourse 
of people. The assembly was called to order by 
Joseph B. Walker, who, in behalf of the cemetery 
committee, made some introductory remarks, in 
which he alluded to the efforts of the city authori- 
ties to secure a new and ample rural cemetery. 
Other locations had been examined and discussed, 
but this tract of land, comprising some thirty acres, 
was selected and purchased for the sum of $4,500. 
It has a pleasing variety of surface, of hill, plain 
and valley, and a beautiful stream of water flows 
through it. In its topography it was said to bear 
some resemblance to that of ancient Jerusalem. It 
was also made the duty of this committee to fix on 



52 Wayside Jottings 

a name for the cemetery. A number had been sug- 
gested, among them that of Blossom Hill, and at 
the close of the consecration exercises, it was voted, 
on motion of Richard Bradley, that it should be 
known by that name. 

The consecration exercises were of an interesting 
character. Most of the Protestant clergymen in 
the city took part in them. The E-ev. Elisha 
Adams, pastor of the First Methodist Church, read 
the Ninetieth Psalm; the Rev. E. E. Cummings, 
D. D., pastor of the Pleasant Street Baptist Church, 
offered a prayer of invocation; the hymn, ''Dear 
is the Spot "Where Christians Lie," was read by 
the Rev. C. W. Flanders, pastor of the First Baptist 
Church, and sung b}^ a select choir ; the Rev. H. E. 
Parker, pastor of the South Congregational Church, 
read some Scripture selections; the Rev. Nathaniel 
Bouton, D. D., pastor of the North Congregational 
Church, offered a prayer of consecration ; the hymn, 
"This is not My Place of Resting," was read by 
the Rev. J. H. Fames, rector of St. Paul's Epis- 
copal Church ; there was an address by William L. 
Foster, Esq. ; and the exercises closed with the 
singing of the doxology and a benediction by the 
Rev. C. W. Flanders. 

This service of consecration took place a little 
over forty-seven years ago, and it is quite probable 
that the most of those who took part in it have 
passed over the river, and are sleeping their last 
sleep in Blossom Hill Cemetery or elsewhere. The 
address of Mr. Foster, which was afterwards pub- 




CoiKonl lli^rli SchiKil 




Won. .lancet Club 



Wayside Jottings 53 

lished, was able and eloquent. It was written and 
delivered in his best vein. He was acenstomed to 
use the best of English in all his public efforts, and 
he reminded one somewhat of Franklin Pierce, 
another of Concord's able lawyers. Speaking of 
General Pierce reminds the writer that at the 
funeral of his wife, who died at Andover, Mass., 
in the j^ear 1863, and was buried in the Minot En- 
closure, General Pierce walked at the head of the 
procession to the grave leaning on the arm of 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, his intimate friend and 
classmate at Bowdoin College. It will be remem- 
bered that not long afterwards Hawthorne died 
suddenly at Plymouth, while on a trip with General 
Pierce to the White ^Mountains. 

Mr. Foster's address was such a finely written 
production that perhaps some of the older readers 
of the "Jottings" would like to read a few extracts 
from it: 

"Today we found this City of the Dead. Be- 
hold, even now, its broad avenues, its narrower 
streets and paths stretching along these hillsides, 
winding through these valleys ! Behold already 
the lines and boundaries of its sacred homesteads 
marked out upon the turf — household sanctuaries, 
wherein one by one, day after day, the broken 
families of yonder living city shall be gathered to- 
gether. See, here and there, a humble dwelling 
already located — a lowly dormitory, already own- 
ing its pale inhabitant! And swiftly indeed the 
months and years are rolUng on which shall present 



54 Wayside Jottings 

to the traveler upon these ways, crowded streets 
and squares, gleaming with fronts of granite and 
marble. ' ' 



"But a rival city shall this be — at last triumph- 
ant. Yonder flourishing and happy town shall 
send forth swift delegations from her midst to 
populate these abodes, until not one shall remain 
of those who have come thence to this day's con- 
secration. Soon shall the tottering limbs of age be 
here composed to rest ; that blessed rest which comes 
so gratefully when the long struggle of life is done. 
Here, too, shall be assembled the gentle and beloved 
ones of earth; the wives and mothers, daughters 
and sisters; they who have adorned and sanctified 
these Christian homes with the presence and bless- 
ing of womanly charities and womanly patience, 
with lessons of faith, with labors of love, with 
beauty of holiness. And here shall the kindly lap 
of earth receive those little household plants, des- 
tined to blossom in celestial gardens, 'where angels 
walk and seraphs are the wardens.' . . . 

"Thus, my friends, we may come to love this 
hallowed spot, and, lingering among its beauties, 
feel that it is good for us ofttimes to be here. 
The loveliness of nature groweth not old nor pass- 
eth away. How gorgeous soever may be the royal 
chamber of catacomb or p.yramid, adorned with 
marble work and frescoes, bright with golden 
lamps, fragrant with smoking censors, dreariest 
ruin, dust and darkness must fall upon it. But the 



Wayside Jottings 55 

beauty and the grandeur of the rural cemetery are 
renewed year by year and day by day. Soft airs 
of the sweet springtime shall breathe freshness 
upon it^ and autumn shall cover these graves with 
her mantle of friendly leaves. Even the all-en- 
veloping snows of winter shall shield and protect 
the turf from blighting frosts, and wintry winds 
shall murmur through the branches of the trees, 
sunlight shall gladden the scene by day, and the 
beautiful lamps of the sky shall go not out by 
night." 

The conclusion of ]\lr. Foster's address is as 
follows : 

"Come, then, oh, blessing of heaven! Descend 
and dwell upon this beautiful place of the dead! 
From lightning and tempest protect and defend it ! 
Drop, heavenly dews and sweet, refreshing showers, 
upon the grass, and keep it, like the memory of 
those who shall sleep beneath, fragrant and green 
forever! Bring flowers, fresh flowers, and cast 
them with tender hand upon these mounds, to 
speak in beautiful language of love enduring and 
of faith triumphant ! Let pyramid and column 
and sculptured cross and graven cherubim point to 
God and testify of immortality ! ' ' 

X. 

A former resident on the east side of South Main 
Street wishes that the writer had made some men- 
tion in the Wayside Jottings of the residents on 



66 Wayside Jottings 

that side of the street away back in the fifties. 
There was no intention to slight or to ignore that 
side of the street, but that communication was only 
intended to refer to the west side of it. There has 
been quite a change in the appearance of the east 
side, mainly in the section between Freight Street 
and the vicinity of Chandler Street. South of 
Lee's block there has been little change, but like 
the west side of the street, there has been an almost 
complete change in this time in the residents. 

Supposing we start on our ramble at the old 
store, just north of the old Butters' Tavern. This 
store for years has been known as an old-fashioned 
country store — West India goods and groceries 
being a chief feature. Here, if the writer has been 
correctly informed, was where the late Charles 
Hutchins traded for some years, his residence being 
on the corner of South Main and Thorndike Streets, 
where his nephew, Charles Hutchins Thorndike, 
resides; afterwards it was occupied by George F. 
Whittridge, Henry C. Sturtevant, George B. Whitt- 
ridge, Lewis B. Hoit & Co. and others. Just 
north of this store is the brick store which has been 
occupied for some years by George B. Whittridge, 
son of G. F. Whittridge. 

Going up the street, we come a little further 
north to two tenement blocks, one on the line of 
the street, and one in the rear. If the writer is 
correctly informed, these blocks were constructed 
out of material that came from the Concord Acad- 
emy when it was torn down, and which stood on 



Wayside Jottings 57 

"Sand Hill," near what is now known as Academy 
Street. On an alley, leading from Main Street to 
the railroad, is an old house, which Joseph B. 
Walker, in the new "History of Concord," terms 
the "box-trap" style of architecture, it being two 
stories in front and one story in the rear. Prob- 
ably this old house dates back to the colony days 
of George III. The writer is not aware of any 
other house like it in Concord, though on the main 
road in Hopkinton there are two that remain as 
they were in former years. 

Going further north of this allej^, we come to a 
spacious home built by Hon. Isaac Hill, a governor 
of the state away back in the thirties. At the time 
of its erection it was regarded as one of the best 
residences in Concord. In late years it has had 
rather a checkered experience and has been used as 
a boarding and tenement house. 

Just north of the Hill house is the house where 
the late Franklin Low lived till the death of his 
first wife, who was IMiss Mary Hutchins, daughter 
of George Hutchins, who lived on the opposite side 
of the street. North of the Low house was the 
home of George H. Hutchins, a flour and grain 
merchant and the father of Capt. Hamilton 
Hutchins, commander of the Kearsarge, now on its 
long trip to the Pacific. 

This was written when the battleships of the 
fleet were on their trip around the world. 

There are one or two old houses left, north of 
the Hutchins house, but from the Lee block to 



58 Wayside Jottings 

Freight Street the appearance of the east side of 
the street is completely changed from what it was 
in the fifties, save the Pickering house, where in 
those days James L. ]\Iason, for some years a fore- 
man at the Abbot-Downing Company, resided. The 
writer remembers Mr. Mason as a great reader, 
who could give information on matters pertaining 
to ancient history. The change in the appearance 
of this side of the street was made some years ago 
by the building of the carriage manufactory, then 
belonging to Harvey, Morgan & Co. ; the Ford 
& Kimball foundry ; the Concord machine shop ; 
and, in the line of dwellings, by the erection of the 
residences of Josiah E. D wight, Leland A. Smith 
and Edson J. Hill. On the site of these residences 
was where William Gault lived, an old-time mer- 
chant of Concord. The house was moved on to the 
south side of Hill's Avenue and was torn down a 
few years ago^ and on its site was erected the apart- 
ment block, owned by the ''Hill Associates." 

Just north of the Hill residence was the home of 
Nathan Farley. Some of the older readers of the 
Jottings mil remember it as a long, rambling, one- 
story red house in front and two stories in the rear, 
where Mr. Farley for some years had a marble shop. 
Nathan Farley was probably the pioneer in the 
grave stone and monument business in Concord, 
and no doubt specimens of his work can be found 
in the various cemeteries in Merrimack County and 
in other parts of the state. The site of this house 
and the buildings north of it would be a good 



Wayside Jottings 59 

place to erect an auditorium, such as is needed in 
Concord. 

When we come to the square, bounded by South 
Main Street, Pleasant Street Extension, Railroad 
Square and Freight Street, we find that it is abnost 
entirely changed in its appearance from what it 
was in the fifties. On the site of the Cummings 
block was the residence of Isaac Frye Williams, an 
old-time Concord merchant. On the site of the 
Colonial block was the home and office of Dr. 
Alpheus ]Morrill, father of Dr. Ezekiel Morrill and 
the late Dr. Shadrach C. Morrill. Dr. Alpheus 
Morrill, we believe, was the first homeopathic 
physician to locate in Concord. He had a large 
practice in all parts of the city. On the site of 
the Blanchard block was the home and office of 
Dr. Ebenezer G. IMoore, who was a physician of the 
''old school" and who, like Doctor Morrill, had a 
large practice. The term "the beloved physician" 
might well be applied to each of these two men, and 
there are many of the older residents of our city 
who will remember them for their service in times 
of sickness. 

The rest of this square is covered by new build- 
ings, save the house on the corner of Pleasant Street 
Extension and Railroad Square. The other new 
buildings in tliis square are the Railroad Young 
Men's Christian Association building and the Mor- 
rill block. 

The writer has often thought what a fine place 
this square would have been for a small park or 



60 Wayside Jottings 

common. As it is now, in the central part of the 
city, we are dependent on the state for a park. 

White Park and Rollins Park are beautiful spots 
and are all right, but they are at some distance 
from the business part of the city. 

The hindsight of the town fathers away back 
in the thirties was a good deal keener than their 
foresight. This was evident in the rejection of 
the offer by Hon. William A. Kent of a tract of 
land bounded by Pleasant, Rumford, School and 
North Spring Streets for a park, to be known as 
"Rumford Park." Any one, by walking through 
those streets, can see what a grand park, centrally 
located, it would have made. 



XL 

It was a thoughtful act on the part of the Con- 
gregational Union of Concord in erecting a granite 
tablet to commemorate the first religious service 
in central New Hampshire, held under heaven's 
canopy before a dwelling had been reared in which 
to live. It stands near Sugar Ball bluff, on the east 
bank of the Merrimack, on land given by Dr. 
Alfred E. Emery, and which is known as "Memo- 
rial Park. ' ' The inscription on this tablet tells the 
whole story : 

"On the intervale below this spot, a committee 
of the Court of Massachusetts Bay, their surveyors 
and attendants, there present to locate and survey 
the Plantation of Penacook, conducted the first 




riie Rumford Press Building 



Wayside Jottings 61 

religious service ever held in the central part of 
New Hampshire on Sunday, ]\Iay 15, 1726, Rev. 
Enoch Coffin, preacher. 

''Erected by the Congregational Societies of Con- 
cord, October, 1899." 

It would be interesting if there had been a news- 
paper reporter present at that time to give an ac- 
count of this service. Those were days before the 
newspapers, and we shall have to let our fancy 
picture the scene. Perhaps like Mrs. Heman 's Pil- 
grims at Plymouth Rock : 

They shook the depths of the desert gloom 
With their hymns of lofty cheer. 

But it is an inspiring thought that the early 
pioneers in the settlement of the old town recog- 
nized their Creator, and devoted the first Sabbath 
passed within its borders to acts of worship on the 
banks of the Merrimack. 

This locality, which we suppose may be consid- 
ered a part of East Concord, is also famous from 
the fact that here was fought a fierce battle between 
the IMohawks and the Penacooks, between whom 
there was a deadly feud. As the writer under- 
stands it, the Penacooks were naturally peace- 
loving, and the Mohawks were generally spoiling 
for a fight. Whittier in his poem, "The Bridal of 
Penacook," has given us a description of their 
character. 

In their sheltered repose, looking out from the wood, 
The bark-builded wigwams of Penacook stood. 



62 Wayside Jottings 

There glided the corn-dance, the council-fire shone. 
And against the red-post the hatchet was thrown. 
There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and the 

young 
To the pike and the perch their baited lines flung; 
There the boy shaped his arrows and there the shy 

maid 
Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum 

braid. 

It seems that the Penacooks, while peace-loving, 
also acted on the motto, * ' In time of peace, prepare 
for war. ' ' And so they had erected three forts for 
their defence. One was near Se wall's Island; one 
on the bank of the Merrimack, near Fort Eddy 
Plain ; while the principal and strongest fort, occu- 
pying the best position of the three, near the crest 
of Sugar Ball bluff, was built for a special defence 
against the Mohawks ; and connected with this fort 
is the story of the battle, coming down to us 
through Indian tradition. As a precaution, the 
Penacooks had withdrawn their men, women and 
children within this fort, where baskets of newly- 
harvested corn were stored for their use in case of 
a siege. It was a time of mutual watchfulness, 
where one party was afraid and the other daresn't. 
The Penacooks did not dare to fight out in the 
open, while the Mohawks were afraid to attack the 
fort. At last the former were drawn out of the 
fort by strategy, and a fierce battle ensued. Tra- 
dition does not definitely tell us the result of it. 
It leaves, however, the inference that it was an 
indecisive battle, in which both sides suffered 



Wayside Jottings 63 

severely, and the prowess of the Penacooks was 
greatly weakened, as they were less war-like. If 
this battle had occurred in later years it might have 
well been termed a "Concord Fight," though no 
"embattled farmers" were there, and no shots were 
"heard 'round the world," as the fighting was 
probably done with bows and arrows, and at close 
quarters with tomahawks. 

Turtle Pond is the largest pond in East Concord, 
covering an area of about one hundred and sixty 
acres, and IMill Brook furnishes an outlet for it 
into the INIerrimack. This stream is a little over 
tAvo miles in length, but in this distance there is a 
fall of about one hundred feet and on it are three 
mill privileges. The early settlers of Penacook 
were quick to see the advantages of this stream, and 
as far back as the year 1729 one of these privileges 
was utilized for the first sawmill and also for the 
first grist-mill erected within the plantation. This 
was a great boon to the early settlers, as the saw- 
mill furnished them material to build frame houses, 
instead of those made of logs ; and they could carry 
their "grist" to mill, instead of using the more 
primitive method with mortar and pestle. 

As the writer understands it, upon Mill Brook 
were located the first shingle and clapboard mills 
in Concord, and as Robert Eastman, the inventor 
of them, was a native of East Concord, they may 
have been the first in operation in the country. 
These mills revolutionized the method of preparing 
the lighter form of building for the outside of 



64 Wayside Jottings 

houses, as the sawmill had previously done in pre- 
paring the timber for frames and the boarding. 
Prior to the invention of these machines, the 
shingles and clapboards were all handmade. They 
were first "rifted" or split out of the old growth 
pine that in former years grew so abundantly in 
the forests. After being rifted, they were shaved 
out by hand by men who, like the ' ' rif ters, ' ' became 
quite expert in working up in this way the raw 
material. The shingles would be split out so near 
the pattern that but little shaving was needed to 
finish them. This kind of shingle, on account of 
the excellent quality of the stock and the smooth- 
ness of the surface, lasted a good deal longer than 
those sawed by machines, so that the former kind 
have been known to have been on the roofs of 
houses for at least forty years before they needed 
renewing. 

There was considerable prejudice at first against 
these machines on the part of the rifters and 
shavers, as there has been against almost all new 
inventions; but one thing that favored their intro- 
duction and use was the fact that old growth pine 
of perhaps two centuries or more in age was fast 
disappearing and pine that would rift well was 
becoming scarce. Like the boatmen on the Merri- 
mack, in later days, when the iron horse made its 
appearance, their occupation was gone; and while 
there are no old-fashioned shingles now to be seen 
on the roofs of the farm-houses, the handmade clap- 
boards are sometimes seen in evidence on these 



Wayside Jottings 66 

houses. The writer recently saw such a house, 
probably one hundred and fifty years old, stand- 
ing near Turkey Falls, on the old Dunbarton Road. 
It was never painted, save by the weather-brush of 
time, and it reminds him of the home of Gen. John 
Stark that was situated near the Reform School in 
Manchester, and which he visited some years ago, 
before it went up in flame and smoke. 

The most prominent landmark that is visible as 
one passes down Pond Hill and along the highway 
leading around Horseshoe Pond, is the steeple of 
the East Congregational Church. This church was 
dedicated in the year 1842. The architect was 
Jacob A. Potter, an East Concord man. It is said 
that the frame of the bell tower, like that of the old 
North Church, is of white oak, and the timber was 
given by Gen. Isaac Eastman, who also fashioned 
the weather-vane. There are some homely church 
steeples or towers in Concord (the writer does not 
care to say where they are located), but the steeple 
on this church is not one of them. In fact, we 
rather like its style, and it is a reminder of former 
days. It is the only one in town that remains of 
those whose spires pointed heavenward, say sixty 
odd years ago. All the rest have either gone up in 
flame and smoke-— six churches having been burned 
— or they have been remodelled and rebuilt. An 
old resident here in the forties, returning to Con- 
cord -would not recognize one of them ; and the old 
eagle that stands watch and ward over the state 
house is about the only thing remaining to remind 

5 



66 Wayside Jottings 

one of the old cupola. Concord has been fruitful 
in the changes that have been made in the public 
buildings. 

There is an interesting fact in connection with 
the location of this East Concord Church. Its site 
on upper Penacook Street seems to be out of the 
more compact part of the hamlet. But there was 
a reason for the selection of this site, and it was 
that as it increased in population, it would be the 
most central part of the village. Along in the 
thirties, great expectations were entertained by 
people in regard to the development of Sewall's 
Falls and the canals leading from it, these falls 
being about two miles north of the village. In 
Henry McFarland 's interesting chapter in the new 
"History of Concord," on "Canals," he gives a 
very clear account of these projects, which gave 
rise to great expectations concerning the future of 
East Concord. He says: "The purpose of the 
Sewall's Falls Company, which controlled the 
water power at Sewall 's Falls, was to build a canal 
about two and a half miles long from a point on 
the river near Federal bridge, to an inlet above 
the falls. Besides this service to navigation, this 
canal was to provide power where it was estimated 
that the drop, at ordinary stages of the water, 
would be sixteen feet. It was intended to con- 
struct two water courses to lead off easterly from 
the main channel, and between these would be 
situated mills needing power. After performing 
this useful office, the water was to run out by a 



Wayside Jottings 67 

raceway to the Mill Brook valley. It was esti- 
mated that there would be power enough to drive 
twenty-three mills of 5,000 spindles each." This 
plan, if carried out, would make East Concord 
almost a second Lowell. 

This was certainly a great project on paper, but, 
like other schemes of mice and men, it came to 
naught. The building of a railroad through the 
valley of the Merrimack was probably the death 
blow to canals and to other enterprises on paper. 
In this connection, we might refer to the great 
expectation in the early years of the last century 
of the permament location of the state capital in 
Hopkinton village, which was unexpectedly knocked 
in the head by its location in Concord. It would 
be interesting to know what would be the condition 
of things in the valley of the Merrimack if James 
Watt had never discovered the power of steam or 
George Stephenson had never invented the loco- 
motive. 

Probably the most ancient landmark that greets 
the eye as one passes over Federal bridge is the 
dwelHng that bears on its gable the legend "Elm- 
Croft," and of which Col. J. Eastman Pecker is 
the owner. It was the home of his ancestors and 
was built in the year 1755 by Philip Eastman. 
The writer, on invitation of Colonel Pecker, visited 
this house a few years ago, and was well repaid 
for so doing. While the main house is, on account 
of its age and interior arrangements, an interesting 
structure, an addition has been made to the rear 



68 Wayside Jottings 

of the house and contains in the second story one 
of the finest private libraries in this section of the 
state. Colonel Pecker is a noted collector of old 
and rare books and pamphlets, being something of 
a bibliomaniac, and this library is a monument of 
his labors in that direction. As before stated, this 
house was built in 1755 by Philip Eastman. It 
was the home of Jeremiah Pecker from 1779 to 
his death in 1843, at the age of seventy-one years, 
and was the home of his widow, Mary Eastman 
Pecker, from the time of her second marriage, in 
1822, till her death in 1882, aged ninety-one years. 
Capt. Jeremiah Pecker, a minute man in the war 
of 1812, was a son of Maj. James Pecker, M. D.. 
of Haverhill, Mass., a surgeon in the Continental 
Army, and who died at Valley Forge in 1778. Col. 
J. E. Pecker is a great, great grandson of Philip 
Eastman and a grandson of Jeremiah Pecker. 

XII. 

Oliver Goldsmith's tribute to ''Sweet Auburn" 
as "the loveliest village of the plain" might per- 
haps apply equally as well to the suburban hamlet 
of East Concord. Goldsmith could probably have 
found as much happiness to the square foot in this 
locality if it had been his early home, as on his 
native heath, and of which he says : 

Where health and plenty cheered the lab'ring swain. 
Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid, 
And parting Summer's ling'ring blooms delayed. 



Wayside Jottings 69 

The original name for this section was "The 
Fort," from the fact that in the early settlement 
of Penacook one Avas built there by some Scotch- 
Irish, as the record says, on the intervale, ''within 
eighty rods of Sewall's farm. This farm was a 
part of the five hundred acre grant, known as the 
'Endicott Grant,' and was surveyed and laid out 
in the year 1668. The title to this tract of land 
having been sold by Governor Endicott to John 
Hull, the wealthy mint master of Massachusetts, 
and he dying, his daughter Hannah, and her hus- 
band, Samuel- Sewall, the famous judge in the 
Salem witchcraft days, petitioned the Great and 
General Court of jMassachusetts Bay, in the year 
1695, that this tract of land might be confirmed to 
them, and the prayer was granted. 'Sewall's 
Farm' was the first grant of land that was made 
under the authority of Massachusetts in Pena- 
cook." 

The territory of Penacook early attracted atten- 
tion as a desirable ])lace for a settlement, and as 
a result there was considerable of a tangle in regard 
to the grants of land that were made by different 
parties. Prof. Amos Hadley, in Chapter Two of 
the new "History of Concord," has unravelled 
this tangle in as plain a manner as it could be done, 
and it is well worth reading by anj^one who desires 
to be informed in regard to the early history of our 
city and the conditions surrounding the first set- 
tlers. It also appears that the "Scotch-Irish," of 
whom mention has been made, was another dis- 



70 Wayside Jottings 

turbing element that vexed the souls of the first 
settlers. They had a holy horror of the Irish, and 
did not discriminate very closely between those of 
Catholic affiliations and those of Protestant views 
who were stalwart Presbyterians. It is pretty safe 
to affirm that there was never any love lost between 
an Englishman and an Irishman, even if the latter 
did have an infusion of Scotch blood in his veins. 
And in former times more than in the present, the 
respective slogans of these combative races seemed 
to be : 

I can smell the blood of an Englishman, 

(Or an Irishman). 
I must and will have some. 

It was in 1719 that sixteen families of Scotch- 
Irish Presbyterians made a settlement in Nutfield, 
afterwards known as Londonderry. Some of these 
new comers, who were of an adventurous turn of 
mind, began to look for more room, as their num- 
bers were increased by new immigration, and they 
cast longing eyes on the fertile intervales of Pena- 
cook. Then there occurred another tangle in re- 
gard to conflicting grants of land, and which Mr. 
Hadley has also unravelled. This "Fort," to which 
allusion is made, was built in the year 1724, the 
year before the Plantation of Penacook was gi'anted 
to Benjamin Stevens and others. As the Scotch- 
Irish had obtained a foothold in Londonderry, the 
grantees of the settlement feared that they would 
also obtain one on the east side of the river, and it 



Wayside Jottings 71 

would be difficult, as they expressed it, 'Ho root 
them out." "There were, however," as Mr. 
Hadley says, "more words than blows on the 
]\Ierrimack at that time," and the final upshot of 
the matter was "the Irish people" shook off the 
dust from their feet and left for a more congenial 
location ; possibly they were the ones who made 
the settlement on Dunbarton Hill. It was at this 
fort that Colonel Tyng and his scouting party, 
bound for Lake Winnipesaukee in pursuit of 
Indians, made their quarters, on April 5 and 6, 
1725. That it was a late spring is evidenced by 
the fact that they could not travel without injuring 
their provisions, as the snow was deep. 

Probably the Merrimack from its source to its 
mouth was never shallow enough to be forded. 
As the early settlers of Penacook lived on both 
sides of the river, the primitive way of crossing 
it was first by a canoe, and later by feny. There 
were at least three of these ferries in operation at 
various times, o^vned by private parties. 

There was a ferry at the South End, near Water 
Street, known as IMerrill's ferry, owned by Deacon 
John Merrill; one owned by Benjamin Kimball, 
known as Kimball's ferry, which crossed the river 
from Hale's Point to Sugar Ball and reached by 
Ferry Road, now Ferry Street. 

Tucker's ferry, owned by Lemuel Tucker, crossed 
the river near the site of the old Federal bridge, 
and accommodated the dwellers of East Concord, 
known aforetime by the designation of "Over the 



72 Wayside Jottings 

River, ' ' while a section of the intervale, a half mile 
above Federal bridge, embracing the farms of 
Samuel B. Locke, John Locke, Samuel B. Larkin 
and Henry S. Thatcher was known as "Christian 
Shore." Just why that name was given to this 
locality, the writer is not informed. 

For some sixty years after the settlement of the 
town the river was crossed upon the ice in the 
winter, and by the ferries at other seasons of the 
year. The first bridge built across the iMerrimack 
in Concord was the Concord bridge at the South 
End, opened for travel on October 29, 1705. This 
superseded the Merrill ferry. Three years after 
this the Federal bridge at East Concord was com- 
pleted, and this bridge superseded the Tucker 
ferry. Since that time five bridges have been 
erected at this point to take the place of those that 
have from time to time been swept down stream 
or partially destroyed by the big freshets that 
aforetime visited the valley of the ^Merrimack and 
converted the river into a second Mississippi. The 
sixth and last bridge was constructed in the year 
1872, during the administration of Mayor John 
Kimball. It was built with special reference to 
endurance, like all the structures of a public char- 
acter that were constructed during Mr. Kimball's 
term of service. 

Unlike the ferries which were owned by indi- 
viduals, the Concord and Federal bridges were 
each constructed, owned and managed by a com- 
pany, and were known as "toll bridges." The 



Wayside Jottings 73 

members of the Federal Bridge Company were 
Timothy Walker, Benjamin Emery, William Part- 
ridge, Jonathan Eastman and Joshua Thompson. 
It continued as a toll bridge for a series of years, 
or until some time in the forties, when it became, 
by purchase of the town, a free bridge, like its 
neighbor down the river, which was first con- 
structed in the thirties and took the place of the 
Kimball ferry. 

The charter for this bridge provided that ''for 
purpose of reimbursing said proprietors, the money 
expended by them in building and supporting said 
bridge, a toll be, and hereby is granted and estab- 
lished for the benefit of the proprietors, according 
to the rates, following, namely, for each foot pas- 
senger, one cent ; for each horse and rider, three 
cents; for each horse and chaise, sulky or other 
riding carriage drawn by one horse only, ten cents ; 
for each riding sleigh drawn by one horse, four 
cents ; for each riding sleigh drawn by more than 
one horse, six cents; for each coach, chariot, 
phaeton or other four-wheeled carriage for passen- 
gers drawn by more than one horse, twenty cents; 
for each curricle, twelve cents; for each cart or 
other carriage or burthen drawn by two horses, ten 
cents; and three cents for every additional beast; 
for each horse or neat creature, exclusive of those 
rode or in carriages, two cents; for sheep and 
swine, one-half cent each; and to each team one 
person and no more shall be allowed as a driver to 
pass free of toll. ' ' 



74 Wayside Jottings 

XIII. 

No doubt the ideal as well as the scriptural way 
of conducting and maintaining public worship on 
the Sabbath, especially in a rural community, is 
for all the people to meet in one place, on a com- 
mon level — "the rich and the poor together" — 
and realizing in its full significance the truth that 
"the Lord is the Maker of them all." This was 
the method in vogue in New Testament times; it 
was the way in the early Puritan days of New 
England, and it has always been the Catholic way. 
It is the only way to realize the full force of the 
old adage, "In union there is strength." 

For about ninety years after the settlement of 
Concord, or until the formation of the Baptist and 
Unitarian churches, in the year 1818, followed by 
the formation of the Methodist Church, in 1825, 
it was the way that was in vogue in the town of 
Concord. After this time all the people of the 
Congregational faith and persuasion continued to 
worship in the "Old North," till the year 1832, 
when the West Concord Church was formed. It 
is said that there were two main reasons for its 
formation; one was that the Old North parish had 
become so large that no one man could rightly per- 
form the pastoral duties ; another reason was that 
the average distance traveled by those who came 
from the direction of West Concord to the Sunday 
service was about five miles, and so, for their 
accommodation, there was a general desire in that 



Wayside Jottings 75 

section to have a house of worship nearer their 
homes. 

Accordingly, as we have said, in the year 1832, 
one hundred and two members were dismissed from 
the North Church, to form what is now known as 
the West Church ; and for seventy-seven years it 
has been the only church in that section of the town 
— the only one, in fact, that was ever needed — and 
thus setting a good example for other hamlets in 
the state to follow, where there are too many 
churches struggling for existence. And thus, on 
the formation of this church, the name of "West 
Parish" was given to that part of the city now 
known more familiarh' as West Concord. 

The first minister of the West Church was the 
Kev. Asa P. Tenney, who served in that capacity 
for thirty-four years — a pastorate that was only 
exceeded in length by those of Rev. Timothy 
Walker and Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, who served, 
respectively, fifty-two and forty-two years. Prior 
to his becoming pastor, Mr. Tenney, like the Rev. 
Robert Collyer of New York City, learned and for 
a while followed the trade of blacksmith in the 
town of Haverhill. Having a desire to preach the 
gospel, he fitted himself for the ministry. It is 
said that "he was an intensely practical man," 
and in following the trade of blacksmith he prob- 
ably gained a knowledge of horses that served him 
in good stead when in need of it. Being a good 
judge of horseflesh, no one was ever known to get 
the better of him in a trade. It is doubtful if even 



76 Wayside Jottings 

a David Hariim could have done it. It does not 
in any way disqualify a man for the ministry to 
be the lover of a good horse and to be a judge of his 
good points, or how to meet the wiles of some (not 
all) horse jockeys. He probably kept in mind, in 
dealing with them, the scriptural injunction to be 
"wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove." 

To an outsider who passes through West Con- 
cord village on the electrics, it seems to be the 
abode of a thrifty class of people, dwelling in com- 
fortable homes, to whom poverty is an unknown 
visitor. It strikes one in its appearance as being 
more picturesque than beautiful; and well it may 
be so, as it is situated almost under the shadow of 
"rock-ribbed" Rattlesnake and naturally partakes 
somewhat of the roughness of a hill whose supply 
of building granite is probably inexhaustible. 
And it was very appropriate that the second West 
Church, which took the place of a former one 
destroyed by fire, should be constructed of West 
Concord granite, and it also furnished an object 
lesson, close at hand, in the line of this kind of 
building material. 

XIV. 

West Concord has furnished two men in their 
first terms of service as mayors who were faithful 
to the best interests of the people: John Abbott, 
in the years 1856, 1857, 1858, and Moses Hum- 
phrey, in the years 1861, 1862. They were emi- 
nently practical men, and all who knew them 



Wayside Jottings 77 

respected them for their honesty and their enter- 
prise. Perhaps the latter trait of character was 
more plainly seen in the case of ]\Iayor Humphrey, 
for his term of service came in the first two years 
of the Civil War,, when extra duties devolved upon 
him in the care of the soldiers who went to the 
front ; and in his second term of service, in the 
year 1865, when they came back in greatly reduced 
numbers. 

At the age of seventy-three years, when most 
men feel like retiring from active life, he began 
operations, in the face of some opposition, first in 
the construction of a horse railroad through West 
Concord to Penaeook, and afterwards in the in- 
stallation of the electrics. There is probably no 
other seven-mile trolley ride in the state that is 
more interesting, in the variety of its views, than 
from South Main Street, Concord, to Penaeook, 
and on to Contoocook Park. An old timer going 
over this route might contrast the great comfort 
and improvement in this method of traveling, 
especially in the summer time, with the old luml^er- 
ing stage coach, that used to go over this route, 
before the era of railroads, from the north country 
to the ' ' Hub of the Universe. ' ' 

Away back in the thirties, before a railroad in- 
vaded central New Hampshire, when transporta- 
tion by canal boats for a good share of the year 
seemed to be the most feasible way of getting from 
one part of the country to another, a project for 
a canal was set on foot to connect the Merrimack 



78 Wayside Jottings 

with the Connecticut. Another canal was to run 
through West Concord and was to have the name 
of the Contoocook Canal." "It was to leave the 
Contoocook River, either near Horse Hill bridge or 
at the Borough, and coming down through West 
Concord village, past Blossom Hill Cemetery, by 
the old prison, and through the section west of 
State Street, was to enter the ]\Ierrimack either at 
Turkey River or at a point about half a mile above 
Concord bridge. Surveys for the canal were made 
by James Hay ward and Benjamin Parker and 
estimates Avere made as to its cost. It was to be 
eighteen feet wide at its bottom and to have a fall 
from the Contoocook to the terminus of Turkey 
River of about one hundred and twenty-five feet. 
"This project," it was said, "was opposed natur- 
ally by those owning mill privileges on the Con- 
toocook on the point whence the canal would de- 
part, and by others interested at Se wall's Falls; 
so that it came to naught, and as not a spadeful 
of earth was turned in its behalf, it has been well- 
nigh forgotten." 

If West Concord has been famed for nothing 
else, it would have been honor enough to have the 
city's water supply situated within its limits. In 
one sense, Lake Penacook is of more importance to 
Concord than old Rattlesnake, for while we might 
possibly get along without quarrjdng the granite 
out of its "rock-ribbed" sides, we could not get 
along without the pure water that flows under our 
streets from this lake. Concord would not be a 




Peiiacook Lake — City's Water Supply 




'I'lic fouiitry Clul) 



Wayside Jottings 79 

very desirable place for a residence in a sanitary- 
point of view if some convulsion of nature should 
cut off the supply of water. 

Down in Haverhill, Mass., there is a sheet of 
water which bears some resemblance to Lake Pena- 
cook in its situation and history. It is situated in 
the valley of the Merrimack, is the source, we be- 
lieve, of Haverhill's water supply, and some years 
ago its name was changed to Lake Kenoza. On the 
occasion of this change of name there was a celebra- 
tion at which John G. Whittier read a poem. As 
the Indian name of Penacook was substituted some 
years since for "Long Pond;" as Lake Kenoza 
was changed from "Great Pond," the writer 
thought that it would be very appropriate, with 
merely a change in the name, to apply the lines 
of this poem to our own lake. If Whittier were 
alive, we are sure that he would not object to this 
application of it ; and if he did not object, no one 
else need to. It is rather long, but it is a gem 
in its way, and we give it in full : 

LAKE PENACOOK. 

As Adam did in Paradise, 

Today the primal right we claim. 

Fair mirror of the woods and skies, 
To give to thee a name. 

Lake of the pickerel, let no more 

The echoes answer back "Long Pond," 

But sweeter Penacook from thy shore 
And watching hills beyond. 



80 Wayside Jottings 

Let Indian ghosts, if such there be. 
Who ply unseen their shadowy lines. 

Call back the ancient name to thee. 
As with the voice of pines. 

The shores we trod as barefoot boys. 
The nutted woods we wandered through. 

To Friendship, Love and Social Joys 
We consecrate anew. 

Here shall the tender song be sung. 
And Memory's dirges, soft and low; 

And wit shall sparkle on the tongue, 
And mirth shall overflow. 

Harmless as summer lightning plays 
From a low, hidden cloud by night, 

A light to set the hills ablaze. 
But not a bolt to smite. 

In sunny South and prairied West 
Are exiled hearts remembering still. 

As bees their hive, as birds their nest, 
The homes of Concordville. 

They join us in our rites today; 

And, listening, we may hear ere long 
From inland lake and ocean bay 

The echoes of our song. 

Penacook! O'er no sweeter lake 
Shall morning break or noon cloud sail ; 

No fairer face than thine shall take 
The sunset's golden veil. 

Long be it ere the tide of trade 

Shall break with harsh-resounding din 

The quiet of thy banks of shade. 
And hills that fold thee in. 



Wayside Jottings 81 

Thy peace rebuke our feverish stir. 

Thy beauty our deforming strife; 
Thy woods and waters minister 

The healing of thy life. 

And sinless mirth, from care released. 

Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky. 
Smiling as smiled on Cana's feast 

The Master's loving eye. 

And when the summer day grows dim, 
And light mists walk thy mimic sea, 

Revive in us the thought of Him 
Who walked on Galilee! 



XV. 

In looking at the bird's-eye view of Penacook as 
given in D. Arthur Brown's history of that village, 
one is impressed with the thought that years ago 
it might have been the nucleus or center of another 
town, instead of being known as "Ward One," 
Concord. This ward, with portions of Boscawen, 
Canterbury" and perhaps Webster, would have 
made one of the most enterprising towns in the 
county. As we characterized West Concord as 
more picturesque than beautiful, so the same might 
be said of Penacook, and the term romantic might 
be added to that part of the village through which 
the Contoocook rushes headlong and seemingly 
anxious to join the waters of the ]\Ierrimack, 
having a fall of about one hundred feet within the 
limits of one and a half miles. 

One of the original proprietors was Henry Rolfe, 

6 



82 Wayside Jottings 

who acquired a stretch of land on the south side 
of the Contoocook extending from the Merrimack 
to the Borough. The early records state that one 
of Henry Rolfe's descendants, Benjamin Rolfe, 
settled here in 1758. The first settlers who settled 
on the north side of the Contoocook in Boscawen 
came from Newbury, Mass., in 1734. One of these 
was Stephen Gerrish, who settled on the intervale 
and established the first ferry between Boscawen 
and Canterbury, having the same location as the 
present bridge between these two towns. 

Over at the Borough the first settler was Joseph 
Walker, who built himself a log house for his 
habitation about the year 1750. 

The Indians not being desirable neighbors, he 
remained there but a short time. Richard Elliot 
was the next settler, who came about the year 
1760. Two brothers. Jonathan and Benjamin 
Elliot, also settled there, the former in 1768. the 
latter in 1778. The Borough was the residence 
of a centenarian, Mrs. Lydia Elliot, who died June 
24, 1856, aged one hundred and three years. The 
first sawmill was built at the Borough by Richard 
Elliot about the year 1760. The first grist-mill 
was built by Abel Baker in 1789, on the outlet; 
and to it people came from all directions, bringing 
their grists in bags on their shoulders and on horse- 
back, as there were no roads and wagons were 
unknown. 

The first mill which marked the beginning of 
the woolen manufacturing industry, was built by 



Wayside Jottings 83 

Richard Kimball aud Jeremiah Abbott about the 
year 1800. It was the custom in those days for the 
farmers to carry their wool to this mill, where it 
was carded into rolls ; the rolls were then taken to 
the farm houses, where the women spun the rolls 
into yam and wove the yarn into cloth on hand 
looms, aud thus clothed their families. Thus the 
manufacture of woolens dates back more than one 
hundred years. Another sawmill was built at the 
lower falls by Nathaniel Rolfe. It was constructed 
by Benjamin Kimball, a noted millwright in those 
days, the father of John and Benjamin A. Kimball, 
and no doubt they inherited their skill in mechani- 
cal construction from their father. The elder Kim- 
ball did a good work in building dams and thus 
developing the water power that was used in run- 
ning the saw and grist mills. 

In the early days of the village it was a place 
where large quantities of lumber was drawn and 
the land now in the vicinity of the railroad station 
was used for depositing logs and sawed lumber. 
The lumber was made into rafts, floated down the 
river to Lowell, and through the ^Middlesex canal 
to the Boston market. In fact, this for some years 
was the leading industry of the village, the busi- 
ness being carried on mainly by the Rolfe and 
Gage families at the lower falls, and by the Elliot 
and ]Morrill families at the upper falls. The sur- 
rounding towns contributed of their forests, mainly 
of the old growth pines of large dimensions and 
for which the valley of the Contoocook was justly 
noted. 



84 Wayside Jottings 

It is sometimes the ease that some one family 
has the most to do in building up a manufacturing 
village. This is seen in the history of the Ames 
family at Easton, and the Draper family at Hope- 
dale, Mass. In the case of the village of Penacook 
(known aforetime as Fisherville, so named for the 
Fisher brothers, who built the first cotton mill), 
the Brown family were the pioneers in the manu- 
facture of cotton goods, and the firm name for a 
series of years was H. H. & J. S. Brown. They 
came from Attleboro, Mass.. in 1841, and began 
making cotton goods in 1843. The machinery for 
their mill was brought up on canal boats from 
Lowell as far as Concord, and then hauled on 
wagons to the mill. This firm of brothers con- 
tinued in a partnership business until 1863, when 
it was dissolved and the property divided, H. H. 
Brown taking the mill known as the Contoocook 
mill, on the west side of the river, and J. S. Brown 
the mill on the east side, known as the Penacook 
mill. The former took his sons, Henry F. Brown 
and D. Arthur Brown, into the business with him, 
while the latter continued in the cotton manu- 
facturing business until 1885, when he sold out 
his mill to the Contoocook Manufacturing & Ma- 
chine Co. Henry H. Brown died in September, 
1873 ; John S. Brown died some years later. It is 
not intended in these Jottings to give a complete 
history of the manufacturing industries of Pena- 
cook, but only the earliest ones to which it is in- 
debted for its growth and prosperity. 



Wayside Jottings 85 

When the writer was attending school at Colby 
Academy in the fifties, Henry F. and D. Arthur 
Brown, brothers, and sons of H. H. Brown, and 
William I. Brown, a cousin, son of J. S. Brown, 
were in attendance there as scholars. They were 
all good scholars, and all of them served in the 
Civil War. William I. Brown was attending 
Brown University when the war broke out, and 
joined a military company composed of college 
students known as the University Cadets, being the 
first to sign the roll. He afterwards began re- 
cruiting for the Ninth New Hampshire Regiment, 
New Hampshire Volunteers. He filled various 
positions from second lieutenant to major, was in 
the battles of South Mountain, Antietam, Fred- 
ericksburg, Spottsylvania, and was killed at Fort 
Stedman in JMarch, 1865, a short time before the 
close of the war. 

XVI. 

Just how many men Concord sent to the front 
during the years of the Civil War will probably 
never be known, as no exact records were kept 
prior to the mustering in of the Eighth Regiment. 
It is quite certain, however, that the number was 
not less than sixteen hundred, and Adjutant-Gen- 
eral Ayling has set it as about eighteen hundred. 
It seems hardly possible that nearly two regiments 
of soldiers should have been sent from Concord; 
but whatever the number was from the whole city, 
two hundred and twentv men enlisted from Pena- 



86 Wayside Jottings 

cook, serving either in the army or navy. Fifty- 
four of these men — or about one-fourth of this 
number — never came back, being killed in action, 
or dying of wounds or disease; and a good pro- 
portion of these men met their death from shot or 
shell on the battlefield. 

We referred in the last number of these Jottings 
to the death of Maj. William I. Brown at Fort 
Stedman in Virginia, on March 29, 1865, but a few 
days before the surrender of General Lee at Ap- 
pomattox court house, a minie rifle ball piercing 
his forehead. If ever there was an instance of 
the irony of fate, it was seen in his untimely taking 
off, when after going through four long years of 
conflict and participating in a number of hard- 
fought battles, he should forfeit his life when so 
near the close of it all. Some of the best well-to-do 
people in the village were among the first to enlist ; 
and this statement will also hold true of those who 
went to the front in the last as well as the first 
regiments. The people of Penacook may well be 
proud of the boys of '61- '65. And after peace 
was restored to our divided country, they then 
fully realized the sacrifices that were made by their 
fellow-citizens during the years of the civil and 
the needless war. 

Towering upwards of one hundred and fifty feet, 
the graceful spire that crowns the Baptist Church, 
on the corner of Merrimack and Center Streets, 
Avould be one of the first objects to attract the 
attention of a stranger. The exterior of this 



Wayside Jottings 87 

church has not been materially changed since its 
erection in 1858. At the time of its dedication, 
on September 8 of that year, the New Hampshire 
Statesman remarked editorially: "For all the 
appointments necessary for a religious society, 
there is no edifice in the central part of New 
Hampshire, if in the state, that equals this. It 
is a beautiful memorial of the Christian enterprise 
and enlarged benevolence of those who conceived 
the plan and carried it to completion." This 
tribute of Mr. McFarland will in a measure hold 
good after the lapse of fifty-one years. The cost 
of the church, exclusive of the land, was $18,500. 
the land being the gift of the Contoocook ]\Ianu- 
facturing Company, while the cost of the church 
Avas mostly contributed by H. H. and J. S. Brown ; 
and this evidence of liberality on their part shows 
that these two Christian brothers were helpful not 
only to the manufacturing interests of the village, 
but also to its moral and religious interests. The 
writer attended the dedication of this church, 
hence his liking for it. 

One of the few old-time taverns remaining in 
the valley of the ^lerrimack is the Penacook House 
on the Boseawen side of tlue Contoocook. It Avas 
built in 1787. and has always been in readiness 
ever since to furnish entertainment for man and 
beast. Where is there another tavern in the state 
that can match this continuous record of one hun- 
dred and twenty-two years? It beats the record 
of the Ashville schoolhouse in the Dimond Hill 



88 Wayside Jottings 

district of one hundred and six years. When kept 
by Hannibal Bonney it was known for a while as 
Bonney's Hotel. Mr. Bonney had a twin brother, 
named Horace Bonney, who was the landlord of 
the Ayer House in Hooksett village and which was 
burned a year or two ago. There is a rather inter- 
esting history of these brothers worth noting. 
They were, as we have said, twins ; they had classi- 
cal names, Hannibal and Horace; both served in 
the war with Mexico and were pensioners; they 
knew how to keep a hotel, their hostelries being 
famous for their good cheer; the villages where 
they lived had Indian names; and living to a good 
old age, in the valley of the Merrimack, and in 
death they were not long divided. The palmy 
days of these and kindred taverns were in the years 
before the iron horse found its way into this sec- 
tion of the state, when teams and coaches were the 
principal means for the transportation of mer- 
chandise and passengers. 

Of course, the most noted historic spot within 
the boundaries is Dustin's Island, on which was 
erected, June 17, 1874, a granite statue of Hannah 
Dustin, to commemorate the heroic deed of this 
modern Jael. The occasion of its dedication was 
an interesting one. Addresses were given by Dr. 
Nathaniel Bouton, Col. John H. George of Con- 
cord, George W. Nesmith of Franklin, and others. 
Robert B. Caverly of Lowell, Mass., delivered an 
historical oration and also gave the deed of the 
land to Gov. J. A. Weston, who accepted it in 



Wayside Jottings 89 

trust in behalf of the state. Everything about this 
monument of a mechanical or architectural char- 
acter is well designed and finely executed. But 
the less said about the inscriptions on its four dies 
the better. As D. Arthur Bro\^Ta saj^s in his "His- 
tory of Penacook" (to which we are indebted for 
many of the facts in relation to this village) : "The 
inscriptions are hardly adequate, and it is doubtful 
if any one could learn from them what the monu- 
ment was intended to commemorate." And he 
further suggests that, * ' as the State of New Hamp- 
shire is the owner in trust, bronze tablets should 
be placed in the dies on which should be inscribed 
the main points of the tragic storv', the date of 
the massacre and the date of the dedication of the 
monument." And President Eliot of Harvard 
University is just the man to do it. The writer 
notices that Prof. Amos Hadley, the editor of the 
"History of Concord," while he has a picture in 
it of the Dustin monument, does not print the 
inscription on it. Mr. Hadley used the best of 
English and wanted others to do so, as some who 
attended his private school on Dunbarton Hill in 
the fifties will well remember. 

As is the case with the statue of the "Minute 
Man" at Concord, Mass., Dustin 's Island is visited 
by numbers of people who chiim to be descendants 
of Hannah Dustin, and who wish to see the spot 
where ten of the redskins found out to their sorr6\v 
"what was the matter with Hannah," and her two 
companions in captivity. A resident in this part 



90 Wayside Jottings 

of Penacook for some years says it is wonderful 
what a large number of visitors to this island 
claimed to be descendants of Hannah Dustin. The 
woods seemed to be full of them. There is no doubt 
that Mrs. Dustin was a strong-minded woman in 
her make-up; and as "the proof of the pudding 
is in the eating," so the proof of her courage and 
nerve was seen in the dispatching of ten good 
Indians on that fateful night of March 30, 1697, 
to the happy hunting grounds. 

To the writer the chief charm of Penacook is 
the Contoocook, that runs in its mad career 
through the village, we might say Lodore fashion, 
before it joins the Merrimack, and seemingly glad 
to do so. While it is one of the most important 
of our New Hampshire rivers, on account of the 
manufacturing villages lying along its crooked 
course, that its water power has created, it is also 
one of the most picturesque in its scenery. While 
Burns has sung of Bonnie Doon ; Longfellow of 
the river Charles, and Whittier of the Merrimack, 
because they lived near the banks of these rivers, 
we have a poetess who was born in the town of 
Henniker and who has also sung the praises of the 
Contoocook — Edna Dean Proctor. 

THE CONTOOCOOK. 

Of all the streams that seek the sea 
By mountain pass or sunny lea 
Nowhere is one that dares to vie 
With clear Contoocook, swift and shy, 
Monadnock's child of snow drifts born. 



Wayside Jottings 91 

The snows of many a winter's morn 
And many a midnight, dark and still. 
Heaped higher, whiter, day by day. 
To melt at last with suns of May 
And steal, in tiny fall and rill, 
Down the long slopes of granite gray; 
Or filter slow through seam and cleft. 
Where frost and storm the rock have reft, 
To bubble cool in sheltered springs. 
Where the lone red-bird dips his wings. 
And the tired fox that gains their brink 
Stops safe from hound and horn to drink; 
And rills and springs, grown broad and deep. 
Unite through gorge and glen to sweep 
In waving brooks that turn and take 
The over-floods of pool and lake, 
Till, till to the fields the hills deliver 
Contoocook's bright and brimming river. 

O have you seen, from Hillsborough town. 
How fast its tide goes hurrying down, 
With rapids now, and then a leap 
Past giant boulders, black and steep, 
Plunged in mid-water, fain to keep 
Its current from the meadows green? 
But, flecked with foam, it speeds along; 
And not the birch trees' silvery sheen. 
Nor the soft lull of murmuring pines. 
Not hermit thrushes fluting low, 
Nor ferns, nor cardinal flowers that glow- 
Where clematis, the fairy, twines. 
Nor bowery islands where the breeze 
Forever whispers to the trees, 
Can stay its course or still its song. 
Ceaseless it flows till round its bed 
The vales of Henniker are spread. 
Their banks all set with golden grain, 
Or stately trees whose vistas gleam — 



92 Wayside Jottings 

A double forest — in the stream; 

And, winding 'neatii the pine-crowned hill 

That overhangs the village plain. 

By sunny reaches, broad and still. 

It nears the bridge that spans its tide — 

The bridge whose arches low and wide 

It ripples through. And should you lean 

A moment there no lovelier scene 

On England's Wye or Scotland's Tay 

Would charm your gaze a summer's day. 

O what of beauty 'tis the giver — 

Contoocook's bright and brimming river! 

And on it glides, by grove and glen, 
Dark woodlands and the homes of men. 
With grove and meadow, fall and mill. 
Till, deep and clear, its waters fill 
The channels round that gem of isles 
Sacred to captives' woes and wiles. 
And eager half, half edging back. 
Blend with the lordly Merrimack; 
And Merrimack, whose tide is strong. 
Rolls gently with its waves along 
Monadnock's stream that, coy and fair. 
Has come its larger life to share. 
And to the sea doth safe deliver 
Contoocook's bright and shining river. 



XVII. 

The first settlers of New Hampshire had a pro- 
pensity for building the highways up and over the 
hills, and in some cases, over the steepest part. 
Those who have toiled up Wood Hill, in the town 
of Bow, or Mills' Hill, in the town of Dunbarton, 
will readilv see in those hill towns this fact illus- 



Wayside Jottings 93 

trated. Mills' Hill is said to be two miles up and 
one mile down. On the line of the old Hopkinton 
Eoad, we have Dimond Hill, probably the highest 
eminence in Ward Seven, Concord, and so named 
from Ezekiel Dimond, one of the first settlers in 
that locality. It seems like going up the roof of 
a house to climb it, but for years it was the only 
direct road to Hopkinton village, and private 
vehicles, stages and loaded teams, alike, went up 
and down its sides, until way back in the forties, 
in compliance of the demand of the traveling 
public, a new highway was constructed around the 
north side of the hill, though the old road being 
somewhat more direct route between Concord and 
Hopkinton village, is probably as much used for 
light travel as ever. 

Before we reach Dimond Hill, we pass the Ash- 
ville schoolhouse, a small, unpretending structure 
that is a reminder of the olden time. It is a type 
of the old-fashioned schoolhouse. It was built in 
the year 1803 and is the oldest schoolhouse now 
standing in the city. It is a four-square, one-story 
structure with hip roof. A tall white oak, prob- 
ably as old as the house itself, stands guard over it. 
This schoolhouse is probably the oldest now in use 
in the state. Here was "graduated" a professor 
in Dartmouth College, Prof. Ezekial Dimond. 

On gaining the summit of this hill, a fine view 
is obtained of Merrimack valley and the region 
beyond. Here Isaac N. Abbott, a native to the 
manor born, and a life-long resident, has erected 



94 Wayside Jottings 

as fine a set of buildings as can be found in IMerri- 
mack County, and the farm speaks for itself as to 
its condition and cultivation. The political light- 
ning has never struck any of the farmers of Con- 
cord, with the exception of John Abbott, in his 
first term. The three central wards, especially 
Ward Five, seem to have a mortgage of the mayor- 
ship — Ward Five having had a baker's dozen that 
have held the office — but if it had ever struck a 
farmer of AVard Seven, Mr. Abbott would have 
made a good mark, being a practical man of affairs, 
as witness his fifty years' service as clerk of the 
town school district. 

This old highway, for two miles or more, is noted 
for the number of old-style houses that line the 
road, and that were built in the colonial period. 
We have here an illustration of two styles, the 
"box-trap" style and the "square" style. In Mr. 
Walker 's article in the new ' ' History of Concord, ' ' 
he alludes to these styles, and which are still seen 
in some parts of the city. Pictures are also given 
of them. The "box-trap" style was built two 
stories in front, running down to one story in the 
rear. A good example on this highway of the 
"square" style is seen in the summer home of 
William F. Thayer of Concord. When erected it 
was regarded as one of the best houses in Hills- 
borough County, of which Hopkinton was then a 
part. Before the era of railroads, when lines of 
stages and farmers' teams traveled to and from 
the "up country," it was a hostelry where the 



Wayside Jottings 95 

wants of man and beast were provided for. Wil- 
son Flagg, in his "Woods and By- Ways of New 
England." says: "In my mind the elm is inti- 
mately allied with the old dwelling houses. Not 
many of these venerable houses are still extant ; 
but wherever we see one, it is almost invariably 
accompanied by its elm, standing in the open space 
that slopes from the front." In the case of jMr. 
Thayer's house, there are four stately elms, that 
stand in line like four brothers, all of similar size 
and height, though planted rather near together. 
They are quite a curiosity. Along this old road is 
the home of the Baldwin apple, and in bearing 
years, the trees are loaded with fruit. Probably 
the farm of Frank H. Colby, opposite ISlr. Thayer's, 
is the best fruit farm in this section of the town, 
as the trees are comparatively young and thrifty, 
and the orchard is worth seeing in harvest time. 

Further along the road, Harry H. Dudley of 
Concord has a summer home, fronting the old 
Hooksett turnpike, on what he has named the 
"Garrison," so named from the fact that here was 
located one of the three garrisons that were built 
for the protection of the inhabitants of the town 
from the Indians. This was named the "Kim- 
ball" garrison; one was also located on Putney 
Hill; the other, near the village of Contoocook. 
Within a stone-throw of the site of the Kimball 
garrison is the old Fletcher house, the home of 
Rev. Elijah Fletcher, the second pastor of the 
\dllage Congi-egational Church (1778-1786), and 



96 Wayside Jottings 

the father of Grace Fletcher, who became the wife 
of Daniel Webster. 

XVIII. 

Those who have visited the towns in Merrimack 
County will agree that there is no pleasanter place 
wdthin its borders than Hopkinton village. It is 
a village that would have delighted the soul of 
Oliver Goldsmith, and where Rip Van "Winkle 
could have enjoyed his long nap without molesta- 
tion. It has not changed very m^^ch in its appear- 
ance with the passing of the years ; some of the 
old landmarks have disappeared, notably the 
structure that at first served the dual purpose of 
a court house and the home of the Hopkinton 
Academy, and in later years as a town house, 
and the famous hostelry that in stage coach days 
was known as the Perkins Tavern — both of these 
some years ago went up in flame and smoke. With 
these exceptions, the village main street, embow- 
ered in the shade of the handsome maples and elms 
— among the latter the famous Lafayette elm — 
remains substantially the same as it did way back 
in the forties, when the writer first knew it. It is 
one of the few remaining rural villages that James 
Bryce speaks about in the "American Common- 
wealth." But the older residents of those years 
have mostly passed to "the undiscovered country 
from whose bourne no traveler returns." 

Suppose we turn back the tide of time to those 
years and recall, if we can, the names of those that 



Wayside Jottings 97 

lived in the spacious and comfortable homes that 
line this street. The ministers of the three 
churches would perhaps come first in order. They 
were the Rev. Moses Kimball, pastor of the Con- 
gregational Church ; the Rev. Samuel Cook, pastor 
of the Baptist Church, and the Rev. Moses B. 
Chase, rector of the St. Andrew's Episcopal 
Church. There were a number of judges and 
lawyers resident here, as Hopkinton in its palmy 
days was one of the two shire towns of Hills- 
borough County, prior to the formation of Merri- 
mack County, and came pretty near being the 
capital of the state. In fact, the Great and Gen- 
eral Court met here four times, prior to the year 
1819, when the new state house at Concord was 
first occupied. 

One of these judges was Matthew Harvey, a 
gentleman of the old school, and the very embodi- 
ment of kindliness. Then there were John Harris, 
Baruch Chase and Horace Chase, who for some 
years was judge of probate of Merrimack County. 
The physicians were Dr. Ebenezer Lernerd, Dr. 
Stephen Currier, Dr. James A. Gregg and Dr. 
Cyril C. Tyler. The old Perkins Tavern, kept at 
first by Capt. Bimsley Perkins, and afterwards, in 
the forties, by Joseph Stanwood, was then in all 
its glory. As there were a number of stage lines 
that ran through the village from the north coun- 
try, and in the direction of Hillsborough and 
Keene, there was quite a lively time on the coming 
and departure. 



98 Wayside Jottings 

Other prominent residents in the forties were 
Capt. Herman H. Greene, Josiah H. Knowlton, 
Daniel Flanders, Ariel P. Knowlton, Theophilus 
Stanley, Thomas Wells, Isaac Long, Thomas Bailey, 
Reuben French, I. Webber Fellows, Horace Ed- 
munds, William Little and Samuel Smith. Others 
there were, of course, whose names the writer does 
not recall. 

Hopkinton village in the first .years of the last 
century had a fair future before it, as the sessions 
of the court were held there in connection with 
the town of Amherst. And it had a fair prospect 
of being the capital of the state, but it was changed, 
however, by one vote in the proceedings of the 
governor and council, which turned the scale in 
favor of Concord. The formation of Merrimack 
County also changed its shiretown and brought 
the courts to Concord. The principal cause of 
Hopkinton 's decline has been stated by C. C. Lord 
in "Life and Times in Hopkinton." He says: 
"Some sixty years ago the tide of local emigration 
began. The commercial and manufacturing cen- 
ters began to attract the young of both sexes. The 
store, the shop and the mill got their share of 
recruits from this town. Then the newer states 
of the West began to draw their quota of adven- 
turers. " Of late years, the village and Putney 
Hill are getting to be summer resorts, and many 
of the houses in the village are occupied by 
sojourners during the pleasanter part of the year, 



Wayside Jottings 99 

while in the winter months it has the appearance 
of a deserted village. 

One of the notable institutions of Hopkinton 
village is the New Hampshire Antiquarian Society. 
It is an outgrowth of the Philomatic Club, organ- 
ized in the year 1859. Three young men, George 
E. Crowell, Darwin C. Blanehard and Silas 
Ketchun, were its organizers ; at first its member- 
ship was limited to seven. Its constitution was 
formed on the model of the Kit Cat Club as 
described in Addison's "Spectator." The mem- 
bers were to meet once a week, when practicable, 
otherwise as often as they could. The original 
design of this club was social, intellectual and lit- 
erary culture ; a private collection of relics, min- 
erals and natural curiosities was formed, and in 
the sixties was placed in a room in Mr. Crowell's 
house on Beach Hill. Here the club continued to 
meet until the year 1868, when the house passed 
into other hands, and the collection of curiosities 
was afterwards removed to Contoocook, where it 
remained till the year 1890, when, on its com- 
pletion, the Long Memorial building became the 
permanent home of what is now known as the New 
Hampshire Antiquarian Society. This three-story 
structure of brick and stone was erected by Mrs. 
William H. Long, in memory of her husband, a 
native of Hopkinton village and for some years a 
master in the Boston public schools. A half a day 
could be profitably spent in looking over the fine 
collection of relics and antiquities that are to be 



100 Wayside Jottings 

found arranged in glass cases in the spacious hall 
devoted to the uses of the society. 

There is probably no finer view of the valley of 
the Contoocook, with old Kearsarge in the back- 
ground, than that obtained from the summit of 
Putney Hill. It is the oldest part of the toAvn 
and one of the landmarks remaining is the old 
parsonage. There are some good farms in this 
section of the to\\Ti, and it is the home of the 
Baldwin apple. Now that the Perkins Inn at the 
village has gone up in flame and smoke, the two 
remaining summer hotels, the Mt. Lookout House 
and the Grand View House, are left to cater to 
the wants of the city visitors. 

XIX. 

One of the old landmarks in Hopkinton village 
is St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. In fact, it is 
the oldest church edifice in town, having been built 
in the years 1827- '28, and dedicated on June 25, 
1828, nearly seventy-eight years ago. While the 
older churches generally throughout the state have 
undergone a renovation or reconstruction, either 
in their exterior or their interior, this church is 
substantially the same in its appearance today as 
it was the year it was dedicated. It is of solid 
construction, its walls being of granite and having 
a square tower of the style that was in vogue in 
those years. Its interior remains about the same 
and is pleasing and attractive. A pipe organ, a 



Wayside Jottings 101 

reredos, and a reading desk are the only new fea- 
tures. The pews have never been changed and 
are of the kind that were formerly to be found in 
our churches, being pro^dded with doors and but- 
tons to fasten them when closed. In olden times 
a man 's pew was regarded as his castle on Sundays, 
and strangers were not very cordially welcomed. 
But this fashion has all been changed, and ushers 
are alwaj^s glad to show one to a seat. 

A relic of former days stands unused in the old 
singers' gallery over the vestibule that is quite a 
curiosity and ought to have been in the famous 
collection of old musical instruments that were 
exhibited by Chickering & Sons a few years since; 
it is a pipe organ, made by Lemuel Hodges of 
Windsor, Vt. It has been displaced by a more 
modern organ, which stands at the right of the 
reredos. \Vliat adds much to the beauty of the 
interior of the church are the stained glass memo- 
rial windows giving "a dim religious light" to the 
interior. One of these windows, near which the 
organ is appropriately placed, and at which she 
presided for a number of years, has this inscrip- 
tion : "To the Memory of Catherine Crosby Per- 
kins Lemerd, "Who For Twenty Years Was in 
Charge of the Music of This Church. Died Dec. 
26. 1892." What particularly interested the 
writer, and brought back some old-time recollec- 
tions, was the fact that this lady taught a private 
school in Hopkinton village some years ago, and 
when a voungster he was one of her scholars and 



102 ^Yayside Jottings 

has some rewards of merit in his possession that 
she gave him. His recollection of her is that she 
was a good teacher. 

Within a stone's throw of St. Andrew's Church 
is another landmark in the shape of a big elm that 
is historic. A bronze tablet on its trunk records 
the fact that under its branches Rev. Jacob Scales, 
the first minister of the town, was ordained, in 
February, 17^9. Also, that General Lafayette 
held a reception there, when he passed through 
the village on his way to Vermont, June 22, 1825. 
It was probably the most notable event in the his- 
tory of the town. And this is a reminder that 
there is another Lafayette elm, in the state house 
park, for the tradition is that when the state of 
New Hampshire gave the famous dinner in that 
place in honor of General Lafayette, when he 
visited Concord, and at which as guests were some 
two hundred Revolutionary soldiers under com- 
mand of Gov. Benjamin Pierce, the general sat 
at the head of one of the tables under this elm. It 
is said to be the first tree to the north of the Web- 
ster statue, and nearly in line with it. If the town 
of Hopkinton could commemmorate Lafayette's 
visit by placing a tablet on the elm, stating that 
fact, it seems to be a pertinent inquiry why the 
state of New Hampshire should not also do the 
same thing b.y the elm in the park. 

Five roads branch off like spokes from a wheel 
from the village square that fronts the Perkins Inn 
and the Congregational Church. If we take the 



Wayside Jottings 103 

road leading to Beech Hill and Tyler's bridge over 
the Contooeook^ we will soon come to the place 
where the first and last public execution took place 
in Merrimack County. It was here that Abraham 
Prescott was hanged on January 6, 1836, for the 
murder of Mrs. Sally Cochran of Pembroke. 
While other places or sites in or near the village 
have been appropriately marked with bronze tab- 
lets, nothing of the kind has been attempted at this 
place, probably on account of the tragic character 
of the scene there enacted, and the doubt about the 
mental responsibility of the principal actor therein. 
It is near the highway in what formerly was a 
pasture, now used by the Beech Hill Golf Club as 
golf links, and on which a neat club house has been 
erected. Nearby is a fine oak grove, one of "God's 
first temples," where in years past the Fourth of 
July Sunday School celebrations took place, and 
where in recent years Hopkinton's Old Home Day 
has been observed with appropriate exercises. 

Abraham Prescott was probably a demented man 
when he committed the crime for which he was 
executed, and if the old saying is true, that "the 
blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church," 
then his legal taking off was the seed corn, or 
starting point, of the movement that culminated in 
the location and building of an asylum for the 
insane in Concord. And one looking at this asy- 
lum, or hospital, and noting the many buildings 
that have been erected from year to year, can see 



104 Wayside Jottings 

what a great and beneficent institution it has come 
to be. 

Prof. Amos Hadley, in an interesting address 
that he delivered in June, 1896, before the New 
Hampshire Historical Society on "New Hampshire 
in the Fourth Decade of the Passing (Nineteenth) 
Century, ' ' refers to this grewsome event as follows : 

"In 1833 occurred in Pembroke the startling 
murder of Mrs. Sally Cochran at the hands of the 
youth, Abraham Preseott. The case is a celebrated 
one in our criminal annals. Preseott was twice 
tried, twice convicted, and twice sentenced to be 
hanged. Upon the unanimous recommendation of 
the three judges of the highest court — Richardson, 
Parker and Upham — who had sat at his trial, and 
upon the petition of others. Governor Badger 
ordered the execution postponed from the 23d of 
December, 1835, to the 6th of January, 1836. A 
great crowd of spectators had gathered at the jail 
in Hopkinton on the former day and, disappointed 
at the reprieve, had resorted to such threats of mob 
violence as caused the death, by fright, of Jailer 
Leach's invalid daughter. The members of the 
court, who had doubts as to Preseott 's soundness 
of mind at the time of committing the deed, recom- 
mended to the governor a continuance of the re- 
prieve, — if the council should consent, — till legis- 
lative relief might be obtained. The council would 
not consent, and so the condemned youth, — a fitter 
subject for a lunatic asylum than the gallows, — 
was executed on the cold January day, dangling in 



Wayside Jottings 105 

the sight of thousands who had gathered from all 
the region around. But Charles H. Peaslee and 
lehabod Bartlett, fully convinced of the moral 
irresponsibility of the victim whom they had 
strenuously defended at the trial, found in this 
result new incentive and argument in their emi- 
nently effective efforts to establish an asylum for 
the insane — the question of doing which soon en- 
gaged the earnest attention of the people and the 
legislature." And then Mr. Hadley gives an ac- 
count of the efforts that were made by the different 
administrations and Legislatures for the establish- 
ment of an asylum, until six years after the execu- 
tion of Prescott, or in the year 1842. it was opened 
for the reception of patients. 

About a mile east of Hopkinton village, near the 
junction of the main road to Concord and the old 
Hooksett turnpike, is an old dwelling house, prob- 
ably one of the oldest in town, and which has 
always been unpainted save by the weather brush 
of time. It is somewhat historic, and a bronze 
tablet by the side of the highway states that it is 
the birthplace of Grace Fletcher, daughter of Rev. 
Elijah Fletcher, and the first wife of Daniel Web- 
ster. Grace Fletcher, it seems, did not live long 
at this place, for on the death of her father she 
went to reside with her sister, Mrs. Thompson, in 
Boscawen, where Daniel Webster made her ac- 
quaintance. According to Henry ]\IcFarland, who 
took some pains to investigate the matter, and of 
which he gives an account in his interesting volume 



106 Wayside Jottings 

entitled "Sixty Years in Concord," it is not defi- 
nitely known who was the officiating clergyman at 
the marriage of Daniel Webster and Grace Fletcher. 
This took place in SaUsbury on Sunday evening, 
May 29, 1808, and in the notices of the event in 
the state papers the name of the clergyman is 
not given. It was formerly supposed that Rev. 
Thomas Worcester, pastor of the Congregational 
Church of Salisbury^ officiated; another statement 
was that Rev. Asa McFarland, pastor at that time 
of the Old North Church in Concord, was probably 
the minister; but Henry McFarland, after making 
some investigations as to the truth of this report, 
came to the conclusion that ''there was no proof 
that Doctor McFarland officiated at the espousals." 



It is an old saying that "a short horse is soon 
curried," and so it may be said that a town with 
a short name is soon spoken. Bow and Rye can 
both claim the distinction of having the shortest 
names of towns in the Granite State, with Hill, 
Bath, Troy and Lyme as close seconds. The name 
of Bow is said to be derived from a bow or bend in 
the Merrimack. Rye is said to take its name from 
a town in England from which its early settlers 
came. Bow is rather unique in other respects. 
There is nothing that can be called a village within 
its limits. At the Center there is a neighborhood, 
which we usually find at four comers of the high- 



Wayside Jottings 107 

way. There we also find a church and the town 
house. That, along with Dunbarton, it is one of 
the hill towns of Merrimack County, goes without 
saying, as those who have climbed "Meeting House 
Hill" and. above all, "Wood Hill." can attest. 
The former takes its name from the fact that in 
the early days of the town the meeting house 
was located on its summit. It was a Baptist 
Church and the structure is still standing on its 
original site, though it has been converted into a 
barn. It was built at a time when the custom 
largely prevailed of erecting the church on the 
highest hill in town. Its walls, that aforetime 
echoed to the preaching of the old theology, now 
resound to the sounds of dumb animals. And if 
we should moraUze a little, who knows that, after 
all, the old theology may not be as near or nearer 
right than that which is now in fashion, and which 
in fifty years from now will, in turn, be considered 
old and out of date. There is a woful lack of posi- 
tive knowledge on the part of our theologians in 
regard to what is in store for us when we shuffle off 
our mortal coil. Whittier seems to have this same 
thought in his mind when he writes : 

I turn from nature unto men. 

I ask the stylus and the pen: 

What sang the bards of old? What meant 

The prophets of the Orient? 

The rolls of buried Egypt, hid 

In painted tomb and pyramid? 

What mean Idumea's arrow lines? 



108 Wayside Jottings 

Or dusk Elora's monstrous signs? 
How speaks the primal thought of man 
From the grim carvings of Copan? 
Where rest the secret? where the keys 
Of the old death-bolted mysteries? 
Alas! the dead retain their trust; 
Dust hath no answer from the dust. 

That the lumbermen, along with the portable 
sawmills, have visited Bow and have carried on 
their destructive w'ork is plainly evidenced by the 
big piles of sawdust and the limbs of the trees, 
scattered over the ground, which are to be seen 
as one passes over the Hooksett turnpike. These 
men and the mills -are the deadly foes of the forests 
of New Hampshire, and there seems to be no way 
to stay their course. But there is one tract of 
pine forest land, consisting of a pine grove, on 
the farm of David Hammond, on the summit of 
Wood Hill, that has not as yet been invaded, per- 
haps for the reason that the trees are not large 
enough to cut down. This grove is an ideal place 
for picnics and other gatherings, and for the last 
four or five years Old Home Day has here been 
observed. The celebration this year was held on 
August 23 and was carried out in a successful man- 
ner under the direction of Gen. H. M. Baker, as 
president of the town association. 

From the summit of Wood Hill we get a splendid 
view of the valley of the Merrimack, — some think 
it the best view, — and also a far-away look in the 
direction of the White Mountains. Our Merri- 



Wayside Jottings 109 

mack County mountain, old Kearsarge, looms up 
in all its dignity, reminding one of a couchant lion, 
gazing in the direction of his brothers in the White 
Hills. From this elevation we also get a good view 
of the territory claimed by Bow in the original 
grant of land, but which was also claimed by Con- 
cord, then known as Rumford, and Pembroke, then 
known as Suncook. What these towns finally got 
was evidently the best part of the land, leaving the 
roughest and most hilly part to Bow. 

Bow would seem to be a good town to try the 
experiment of a church federation. There are two 
churches in town, the Baptist at the Center, and 
the jNIethodist in the eastern part of the town. The 
former used to be quite a strong church, but death 
and removals to other parts of the country have 
depleted its numbers till hardly more than a 
baker's dozen are left. General Baker, in his ad- 
dress on -Old Home Day, spoke of the desirability 
of pooling the denominational issues, — uniting and 
having but one church. It would be an object 
lesson for other towns to follow, besides carrying 
out the Scripture idea of "one Lord, one faith and 
one baptism." One of the ministers who spoke 
afterwards, in commenting on General Baker's 
suggestion, said that if the plan was carried out 
one of Bow's ministers would lose his job. And 
that is possibly the principal reason why the fed- 
eration of the churches does not succeed, and prob- 
ably never will succeed, though perhaps the remark 
was made half in jest. 



110 Wayside Jottings 

Some years ago, if the writer remembers cor- 
rectly, Wood Hill had another name. It was called 
Flag Staff Hill, from the fact that a flag staff was 
planted on the highest part of it, from which Old 
Glory was wont to float. At the annual Old 
Home Day gathering it was voted, and a com- 
mittee appointed to procure another staff, from 
which the star-spangled banner in triumph once 
more can wave. No better time could be fixed 
upon to fling it to the breeze than on an Old Home 
Day, and General Baker is just the man to dehver 
an oration and cause the old eagle to scream lustily. 
Old Kearsarge and Mount Washington would be 
interested, though distant spectators. 

XXI. 

Two-thirds of the way up Wood Hill, where 
Bow's last Old Home Day was celebrated, we come 
to the road that branches off in the direction of 
Dunbarton Center. It leads into the Bailey dis- 
trict, where the three Oliver Baileys, father, son 
and grandson, have lived in succession and tilled 
one of the largest farms in that locality. The barn 
on the original Bailey farm is probably the biggest 
in town, being all of two hundred feet in length, 
and is a witness of the former days of New Hamp- 
shire farming, when it was filled with hay and 
grain harvested on the uplands and in the meadows 
and where a large stock of cattle was kept. In 
this locality is the humble cottage where Henry M. 



Wayside Jottings 111 

Putney of the Manchester Mirror (now deceased) 
first saw the light of day. As an expert New 
Hampshire politician, he had few equals in a state 
where politicians, like poets, are born, not made. 
We are also in the vicinity of the "Great Mead- 
ows," where Joseph Putney and James Rogers, 
who were among the first settlers of the town, came 
about the year 1748. They had hardly commenced 
a settlement when they were compelled to flee to 
Concord, then known as Rumford, for safety from 
Indian attack. 

From the Bailey district to Dunbarton Center is 
about a couple of miles, and when we arrive there- 
we find that it is like "a city set on a hill that 
cannot be hid." We look down on the west side 
into the valley of the Piscataquog, where is situated 
the village of East Weare, with the hills of Weare 
Center and the mountains of Francestown in the 
background. To the south is seen the grand Mon- 
adnock; to the west we see Ascutney, over in the 
Green jMountain State; while to the east, in the 
neighboring town of Goffstown, are the twin Un- 
canoonucs. Here we find a small village, typical 
of former New England times, with the village 
square and the old meeting-house (since burned) 
standing in the center of it. Dunbarton has a 
longer name than Bow, a name that fills the mouth 
in pronouncing it. The first settlers of the town 
were Scotch-Irish, and along with their household 
goods they brought the name of their town with 
them, although in crossing the big pond the "m" 



112 Wayside Jottings 

in the first syllable was changed to an "n." In 
this connection, it is worthy of note that most of 
the early settled towns of the state have foreign, 
mainly English, names. There is no town in 
Merrimack County that has an Indian name, and 
only four in the whole state, that the writer is 
aware of, — Merrimack, Nashua, Sunapee and Ossi- 
pee, though Concord was originally known as 
Penacook, and Pembroke as Suncook. Probably 
the main reason for this naming of the old towns 
and change of names was that the first settlers had 
a somewhat unpleasant experience with the Indians 
— the Bradley monument out on Pleasant Street 
is a mute witness to that fact. 

At Dunbarton, as we have intimated, there is 
still standing on the village common the first meet- 
ing house (since burned), which was built about 
the year 1785. Its outside appearance remains as 
aforetime, but its interior has undergone a com- 
plete change. The high pulpit, with its quaint 
sounding-board, and the high-backed, square pews, 
have disappeared; a floor divides the interior in 
two halls, the lower one being used for a town hall 
and the upper one for the use of the Grange and 
other social organizations. On the west side of 
the street, nearly opposite, stands the Congrega- 
tional vestry, a two-story building, the upper part 
containing a room which in former days, or along 
in the fifties, was used for a private school, filling 
the place of a high school or academy. Here Prof. 
Amos Hadley, of Concord, and afterwards Prof. 



Wayside Jottings 113 

Mark Bailey, for years an instructor in Yale Col- 
lege, taught the scholars who came from all parts 
of the town. It goes without saying that they were 
first-class teachers, as all who enjoyed their in- 
structions will readily testify. Some of the teach- 
ers in the Center School district along in the fifties 
were Paltiah Brown, afterwards register of deeds 
for Merrimack County; Henry L. Burnham, father 
of Senator Henry E. Burnham ; and John C. Ray, 
afterwards superintendent of the State Reform 
School at ]\Ianchester. Some of the scholars of the 
private school under Prof. Mark Bailey were E. 0. 
Jameson, T. H. Jameson, George H. Twiss, Howard 
Cook, George Putnam, Chase Stinson and James 
Bailey. 

This allusion to the schools reminds the writer 
that about the time to which reference is made 
Revs. J. M. Putnam and H. D. Hodge compiled a 
grammar, which they claimed was a decided im- 
provement on those in use in the schools at that 
time. Henry McFarland, in his "Sixty Years in 
Concord," alludes to this grammar. John F. 
Brown, in whose bookstore Mr. McFarland was 
then clerk, was the publisher, and these gram- 
marians were wont to call at the store and express 
their wonderment why there was not more of a 
demand for the grammar. He states that it was 
somewhat "revolutionary" in its rules and there- 
fore did not go off very well. The writer well re- 
members that grammar, and no doubt Mr. Mc- 
Farland has hit upon the right reason why it did 



114 Wayside Jottings 

not sell better. As the authors were at that time 
the superintending school committee of Dunbarton, 
there was one town where the scholars were obliged 
to get a copy of Putnam and Hodge's Grammar 
and study it. 

William E. Curtis, in his interesting letters from 
this state, first published in the Chicago Record- 
Herald, and afterwards republished in the Monitor, 
says: "Everybody almost in Rye is either a Jen- 
ness, a Locke, or a Philbrick ; that is, all the per- 
manent residents. ' ' In former years, perhaps more 
than now, it might be said that the leading families 
in Dunbarton were either Burnhams, Baileys, Stin- 
sons or Starks ; North Dunbarton being the abode 
of the Pages, the Whipples and the Tenneys; but 
with the lapse of years marked changes have taken 
place. Some of the prominent old-time residents 
of Dunbarton Center, as the writer recalls them, 
were Rev. J. M. Putnam, pastor of the Congrega- 
tional Church; Rev. Samuel Cook, pastor of the 
Baptist Church; Benjamin Whipple, John Stinson, 
Samuel Kimball, Warren Perley, Samuel Burnham 
and John Page. These have probably all gone 
over the river, after living to a good old age. If 
breathing pure air is conducive to longevity, the 
dwellers on Dunbarton Hill get it in full measure. 
It has never been a very favorable location for a 
physician. 

The old meeting-house in the village square was 
where Rev. Walter Harris, the first minister of 
the town, preached the old theology without any 



Wayside Jottings 115 

dilution in its strength. For years the Congrega- 
tional Church was the only church in town. In 
the course of time the Baptists erected a house of 
worship, though regarded somewhat in the light of 
intruders; and the two churches have continued 
on their way under varying conditions. Like Bow, 
it would seem to be a good place to try church fed- 
eration. The writer was in attendance at the first 
Old Home Day celebration in Dunbarton and 
among the speakers was Rev. Samuel Woodbur}% 
then pastor of the Baptist Church in Bow, and 
previously pastor of the Baptist Church in Dun- 
barton. Those who know him will remember his 
humorous way of speaking. There was one winter 
when the Congregational Church was without a 
pastor, and this church and the Baptist Church 
held a union service in the Congregational Church, 
Mr. Woodbury conducting the services. He al- 
luded to this circumstance in his remarks and said 
that one winter he was pastor of the Congrega- 
tional Church, and no doubt he made an accept- 
able one. If such a unity in religious matters 
could be carried out for a few months, there would 
seem to be no valid reason why it might not be- 
come permanent. It is hard to get out of sectarian 
ruts, and probably we shall have church federa- 
tion about the time when "the sword is beaten into 
a plowshare and the spear into a pruning hook, 
and when nations shall learn war no more." 

In any direction that one leaves Dunbarton 
Center, he has to go down a hill, some steeper than 



116 Wayside Jottings 

others, though any of them will fill the bill. The 
road to North Dunbarton leads down Mills Hill, 
which, like Wood Hill in Bow, is said to be two 
miles up and one mile down. A splendid view 
is afforded in its descent of the northern part of 
Merrimack County, with old Kearsarge looming up 
before you, and the White Hills in the distance. 
It would seem worth while for one to throw down 
the muck rake and take a ride out on the hills of 
Bow and Dunbarton and see the beautiful views 
that are presented of central New Hampshire. 

XXII. 

Bryant in "Thanatopsis" tells of 

The hills 
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun 

This is no doubt a good description of many of 
the hills in the valley of the Merrimack, and 
especially of old "Rattlesnake" up in the West 
Concord district. That its sides are "rock-ribbed" 
is evidenced by the many thousands of tons of 
granite that have been blasted from them and have 
been fashioned by skilled artisans into the numer- 
ous stately structures, both public and private, 
throughout our country. While the supply of 
iron, copper, coal and other minerals may in time 
be exhausted, there is no danger but what Con- 
cord's famous hill can be depended upon for a 
supply of granite till the crack of doom. 



Wayside Jottings 117 

Away back in the thirties this ' ' ancient ' ' hill was 
considered of enough importance to have its pic- 
ture inserted in Hay ward's ''New England Gazet- 
teer." In fact, this picture and that of the "Land- 
ing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth" were the only 
two in the book. In the description of Concord 
this picture is given over the name of "The New 
Hampshire Granite Ledge." The writer has an 
idea that this representation is part fact and part 
fancy; or, in other words, it portrayed what then 
existed, and what was projected and hoped for in 
the future. In the foreground is the Merrimack 
with a flat-bottom canal or river boat, with sail 
set, loaded with blocks of granite, starting on its 
trip down the river. Standing on the bank of the 
river, and partly projecting over the water, is the 
freight house of the ^Merrimack Boating Company, 
where the boats loaded. In the rear of the house 
are the stone sheds where the stone men are dress- 
ing the granite, while a train of cars, similar to 
the gravel cars in use on our steam railroads, 
drawn by a tandem team of horses, are carrying 
the blocks of granite to the river. In the back- 
ground old Rattlesnake rears its rugged sides and 
quarrymen are busily engaged in getting out the 
granite. 

The description of "The New Hampshire Gran- 
ite Ledge ' ' as given in this Gazetteer is as follows : 

"Large masses of granite, suitable for building 
purposes, exist here, the most important of which 
is the New Hampshire Granite Ledge, a name in 



118 Wayside Jottings 

which in an act of incorporation an immense mass 
of granite in the northwest part of the town has 
been designated. This ledge is situated about two 
miles northwest of the state house, and is about 
two hundred rods distant from the Merrimack, 
which is navigable to this place with boats. This 
ledge presents a surface of massive primitive gran- 
ite of more than 4,500 square rods. The rift of 
this stone is very perfect, smooth and regular; 
splits are easily made to the depth of twelve to 
twenty feet, and of almost any required length. 
And unlike much of the granite now in the market, 
it has been ascertained by an examination made by 
chemists and geologists that the stone is perfectly 
free from oxides, or other mineral substances, 
which on exposure to the atmosphere mar the 
beauty of much of the New England granite. 
. . . From the base of the ledge to the bank of 
the Merrimack, a railway is contemplated, the pro- 
prietors of the ledge having obtained a charter for 
that purpose. As the facility of transportation by 
way of the Merrimack to the markets becomes 
known, together with the fact that the upward 
freight would, during a great portion of the year, 
go far toward remunerating the cost of transporta- 
tion of this stone to the seaboard, the situation, 
extent, and value of this quarry will be seen and 
appreciated." 

The erection of the old state prison in 1812 and 
the State House in 1816-1819 brought Concord 
granite into notice and created a demand for it. 



Wayside Jottings 119 

It was then dressed by the convicts in the prison 
and shipped to Boston, through the Middlesex 
canal, by the Boating Company, and then on to 
New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New 
Orleans. It was an easy method of transportation 
and a comparatively cheap method. Of course, 
it ceased in the forties on the completion of the 
Concord Kailroad through the Merrimack valley. 
It is an instance where the building of a railroad 
entirely changed the rates for freight. If the 
Merrimack was navigable to Concord it is probable 
that the output of granite would be greatly in- 
creased. It is said that the proximity of the gran- 
ite quarries along the coast of Maine and Massa- 
chusetts to the shipping is what gives the con- 
tractors of these localities the advantage in bidding 
on proposals for the erection of public buildings. 

From the interesting chapter in the new "His- 
tory of Concord" on "Material Development," we 
quote the following information in regard to the 
granite business : 

' ' Granite has had much to do with the prosperity 
of the people, both in its quarrying and in its 
working, and yet its history is not a long one. In 
a small and irregular way it has been used by 
builders and monument makers for a considerable 
period, but its larger and more extensive use has 
only come about within the memory of many of 
Concord's middleaged citizens. 

" In a money point of view no industry has con- 
tributed more largely and more constantly to the 



120 Wayside Jottings 

material advancement of Concord than the granite 
business, and none can show more conspicuous evi- 
dences of aggressiveness and growth. From the 
Rattlesnake ledges have come many of the most 
costly and stately edifices now adorning cities 
stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, 
while in the production of lesser but more en- 
during works, such as public shafts and private 
monuments, the number would be impossible to 
estimate. And yet the hidden wealth of the 
shapely hill was touched into life only a few de- 
cades ago. Simeon Abbott used to tell how his 
father bought thirty-six acres of Rattlesnake Hill 
for fifty cents an acre, and how he sold a single 
rock for one hundred and ten dollars to Goss & 
Johnson, who in turn sold it on a contract at the 
state prison for fifteen hundred and forty dollars, 
where it was hammered and sent to New Orleans 
for the United States custom house, and brought 
the sum of six thousand dollars. 

"One of the quarries on Rattlesnake is known 
as the New England quarry. This quarry will go 
down in history as the birthplace of the magnificent 
Congressional Library at Washington, for from 
here came the material and in the sheds of the New 
England Granite Company were cut and formed 
the graceful and beautiful features of that im- 
posing structure. The contract involved was one 
of the largest ever known in the building world, 
calling for three hundred and fifty thousand cubic 
feet of granite and one million three hundred 



Wayside Jottings 121 

thousand dollars in money. .To complete the whole 
contract required six years. The work kept more 
than three hundred men busily employed, and the 
money paid in wages was not far from one million 
dollars." 

XXIII. 

Dwellers in Concord will doubtless agree with 
the writer that Lake Penacook, known more famil- 
iarly as Long Pond, is one of the fairest gems, per- 
haps the fairest, in the crown of the Capital City. 
It is not merely a beautiful sheet of water, with 
picturesque surroundings, but it is also of great 
practical benefit, in that it furnishes, in an abund- 
ant measure, to the inhabitants of the old town one 
of the greatest boons that mortals can have con- 
ferred on them. Lake Penacook is good illustra- 
tion of the union of the beautiful and the practical. 

Sometimes one is inclined to be old-fashioned 
enough to indulge in the conceit that this lake did 
not come into existence through evolution, but as 
"in the beginning, God created the heavens and 
the earth," so it was set amongst the hills of West 
Concord, by a divine hand, for the great and ex- 
press purpose of furnishing a water supply when 
other sources had proved inadequate, to a rural 
city that was to arise in the valley of the Merri- 
mack, ages after the fiat was pronounced: "Let 
there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, 
and let it divide the waters from the waters." It 
is an inspiring thought that there was a benevolent 



122 Wayside Jottings 

design in the mind of the Creator in the formation 
of these natural objects of lake, river, valley and 
mountain in the old Granite State. Was it not, in 
a large degree, for the benefit of the people who 
come hither in increasing numbers from the cities 
in the summer time, for a renewal of their health 
and strength? This may be a conceit, but it is a 
harmless one, and would seem to be in accordance 
with the teachings of the Scripture that God created 
all these wondrous objects of nature, and then 
"created man in His own image," with powers of 
rnind that were capable of their enjoyment. 

There has been, however, an evolution that is 
patent to all, and that is rather interesting to con- 
sider, in the methods that have been in vogue for 
supplying water here in Concord during the one 
hundred and eighty-two years of its history. It 
shows the advance that has been made here, as 
well as elsewhere, in the invention and in the use 
of means by which household drudgery has been 
shorn of a share of burdens. 

The early settlers of "the Plantation of Pena- 
cook" depended, of course, on springs or brooks 
for a supply of water for their dwellings, and it 
was carried as it was wanted to the house. Next 
came the well, dug as near the house as was prac- 
ticable, and a pail, attached to a pole, was let down 
into it and the water was drawn up by main 
strength. Then came the well-sweep, weighted at 
one end, which was regarded as a great improve- 
ment and a saving of strength. These well-sweeps 



Wayside Jottings 123 

in the olden time were about as familiar objects in 
the country's landscape as windmills are in Hol- 
land. There is, at least, one remaining on the farm 
of John Lane, the veteran milkman, here in Con- 
cord, out on the line of the Pleasant Street boule- 
vard. Mr. Lane is quite enthusiastic over this 
well, and perhaps some of the older readers of the 
Jottings, by bringing to mind recollections of the 
earlier years of their lives will agree w4th him in 
it. He says that he can get a cooler and more re- 
freshing drink of water from the northwest corner, 
or part, of this well, drawn up with the aid of the 
well-sweep, than when pumped up through a lead 
pipe in the house. 

Samuel "Woodworth was in this frame of mind 
when he wrote that famous and popular poem of 
rural life, "The Old Oaken Bucket." 

That old oaken bucket I hailed as a treasure. 

When often, at noon, I returned from the field. 
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure. 

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. 
How ardent I seized it. with hands that were glowing, 

And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell; 
Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, 

And dripping with coolness, it arose from the well. 

How sweet from the oaken rim to receive it. 

As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips! 
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, 

Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips. 
And now, far removed from that loved habitation, 

The tear of regret will intrusively swell. 
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation. 

And sighs for the bucket that hung in the well. 



124 Wayside Jottings 

There is an old well-sweep on the farm in Haver- 
hill, Mass., where Whittier was bom. He refers to 
it in "Snow Bound," and to its appearance after 
a big snow storm had passed over the old town : 

The well-curb had a Chinese roof; 
And even the long sweep, high aloof. 
In its slant splendor seemed to tell 
Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 

Next the windlass was installed in place of the 
"long sweep," over which a rope or a chain wound, 
when operated by a crank in drawing up the water. 
Then the pump came into use, either a wooden one 
placed over the well-curb in the door-yard, or an 
iron or copper one set handy to the sink in the 
kitchen, and connected with the well by a lead 
pipe. Then the aqueduct system came into vogue, 
with its wooden logs, a hole being bored through 
the center of them for the water to flow through, 
until the lead pipe superseded the logs, the water 
flowing through the logs and pipes from an eleva- 
tion on some hillside into a cistern set in the house. 
At last, in this process of evolution, the waters of 
Lake Penacook were brought into the compact part 
of the city, by a system of water works, so that in 
every dwelling, in the water precinct, a supply of 
water as is needed, is easily procured by the turn- 
ing of a faucet. And thus it would seem that this 
lake for the last thirty-six years, or since January 
14, 1873, when the water was first let into the 
pipes, has been fulfilling the great purpose of its 
creation. 



Wayside Jottings 125 

The history of the inception and the carrying out 
of the project of a water supply from Lake Pena- 
eook is quite interesting, but it would be too lengthy 
to be repeated in these "Jottings." Suffice to say, 
that the question of providing an adequate water 
supply for the compact part of the city waited 
some years for a satisfactory answer. In the year 
1829, the springs near the base of "Sand Hill" 
were considered a source of supply, and the "Con- 
cord Aqueduct Association," with a capital of 
$2,000. was incorporated and empowered to take 
water from this source and "deliver it to customers 
at such a price as they deemed expedient." In the 
year 1849, Nathan Call obtained a charter for 
"The Torrent Aqueduct Association," with a capi- 
tal of .$20,000. The management of this associa- 
tion, after the death of Mr. Call, came into the 
hands of James R. Hill, and finally of Nathaniel 
White, who made strong efforts by the utilizing of 
other sources of water to meet the increasing de- 
mands. 

On December 16, 1859, a committee consisting 
of Joseph B. Walker, John Abbott and Benjamin 
Grover, was appointed by the city council to in- 
quire into the feasibility and cost of supplying the 
compact part of the city with water. This com- 
mittee made a report, giving their preference to 
Lake Penacook for a supply, and also gave an esti- 
mate of $172,475 as the cost of the introduction 
and distribution of the water therefrom. This 
project was held in abeyance for nearly eleven 



126 Wayside Jottings 

years, when on July 30, 1870, "the city council 
appointed a committee of seventeen, consisting of 
Lyman D. Stevens, David A. Warde, Benjamin S. 
Warren, Jesse P. Bancroft, Abraham G. Jones, Asa 
McFarland, James S. Norris, Josiah ]\Iinot, Nathan- 
iel White, Daniel Holden, James N. Lauder, Ed- 
ward A. Abbot, John Kimball, John M. Hill, Ben- 
jamin A. Kimball, Moses Humphrey and Benning 
W. Sanborn to report the best course to be taken 
to secure the early introduction of pure fresh water 
from Lake Penacook." This committee reported 
on the feasibility of the enterprise, and after vari- 
ous delays in obtaining the necessary legislation in 
reference to the water rights of the owners of the 
West Concord mills, an ordinance placing the man- 
agement of the city water works in a board of 
water commissioners, consisting of six citizens, with 
the mayor as ex-fficio, was passed by the city coun- 
cil on December 30, 1871. The first board of water 
commissioners consisted of Mayor Abraham G. 
Jones, ex-officio; John M. Hill, Benjamin A. Kim- 
ball, Josiah Minot, David A. Warde, Benjamin S. 
Warren and Edward L. Knowlton. James A. 
Weston of Manchester was appointed chief en- 
gineer, and Charles C. Lund of Concord as assist- 
ant engineer, and operations immediately com- 
menced. The American Gas and Water Pipe Com- 
pany of New Jersey took the contract to construct 
and lay the main line of pipe from the lake, and 
put in the distributing pipes, gates, hydrants, and 
other appendages, for the sum of $143,882. Within 



Wayside Jottings 127 

eight months after the contractors commenced oper- 
ations the water was admitted, as before stated, on 
January 14, 1873, into the pipes, "and thus it 
was," as Mr. Hadley remarks, "that the quiet 
waters of Lake Penacook began to be utilized in 
multiform benefits to the Capital City. ' ' 

Reference was made to the fact that in the early 
history of aqueducts in Concord the water was 
brought through pine logs which were bored 
through lengthwise with a long pod auger. It 
was a crude way of bringing the water from the 
spring on the hillside, but lead pipe had not then 
come into use. This was the case in the con- 
struction of the first aqueduct in Boston in the 
year 1795, the water being brought from Jamaica 
Pond, four miles distant. It is said that it took 
about eighteen miles of these logs to conduct the 
water through the streets of the Hub. The same 
method was used in Hopkinton, way back in the 
forties, and the writer remembers seeing this boring 
process carried on, when a boy living in the village ; 
and it was a wonder to him how the hole could be 
so bored as invariably to go through the center of 
the log. 

That Concord is a fairly well-watered locality 
is evidenced by the fact that out of a total area 
of about 40,000 acres, about 2,000 acres are cov- 
ered with water in the form of the various ponds, 
streams and rivers. Whether the fact of a fairly 
good water supply influenced the first settlers to 
locate here the writer is not informed. That this 



128 Wayside Jottings 

was one of the reasons for the settlement of other 
places is evident in the case of Boston, then known 
by the name of Shawmnt, where Gov. John "VVin- 
throp and his associates settled, "because of the 
excellence of the water." In this connection it 
might be pertinent to inquire if it was any im- 
provement to substitue the English name of Boston 
for the euphonious Indian name of Sha^vmut, which 
means "springs of living waters." Portsmouth is 
another instance where "springs of excellent qual- 
ity were found by those who settled there." In 
later years these "excellent springs" have been 
used in the brewing of ale and beer, and for which 
Old Strawberry Bank is known the world over. 

The question might arise, if in the distant future 
the present water supply from Lake Penacook 
should prove inadequate for Concord's needs, where 
could an additional supply be obtained? The 
answer would be that underlying the city proper, 
at least, at a depth of something over a thousand 
feet, an inexhaustible supply of the purest water 
could be obtained. This is proven by the sinking, 
in the years 1897-1898, by John H. Toof, of an 
artesian well, midway between Main and State 
Streets, and about one hundred and fifty feet south 
of School Street. This well was bored to a depth 
of 1,325 feet, has a diameter of six inches, and 
yields each day between five and six thousand 
gallons of pure water. In confirmation of this 
statement, Joseph B. Walker, who is a good author- 
ity on local matters, in the chapter in the ' ' History 



Wayside Jottings 129 

of Concord " on ' ' Physical Features, ' ' says : ' ' The 
sinking of this well has demonstrated the fact that 
if, at some future time, the water from Lake Pena- 
cook should fail from pollution, insufficiency, or 
other causes, Concord's citizens have in reserve an 
inexhaustible supply of pure water, to which they 
may freely resort." 

If it is not out of place to moralize, the question 
would seem to be a pertinent one, What would all 
this system of water pipes and hydrants laid 
through, or set up alongside our streets, amount to 
in the way of labor saving, and especially in the 
subduing of fires, if it were not for a law, that is 
as universal and immutable as the law of gravita- 
tion, that water seeks and finds its level under all 
circumstances? Whatever the height of the water 
may be at Lake Penacook, it will rise to the same 
height in any part of the city where the water 
pipes are laid. In other words, if the high water 
mark there is one hundred and eighty feet, or 
thereabouts, above a base line at low water in the 
Merrimack at Concord bridge, then the writer 
understands that in obedience to this law the water 
will rise to that height in a stand-pipe erected at 
the bridge. Who, or what made that law so uni- 
versal in its operation? Evolution, or a wise and 
beneficent Creator of the universe ? 



130 Wayside Jottings 

XXIV. 

It does not take a stranger long, when visiting 
Concord for the first time, to find out that the trees 
are verv^ much in evidence in all sections of the 
city. With the exception of White Park and 
Rollins Park, they have been mostly planted at 
various periods of its history. On some of the 
streets there seems to be a superabundance of them, 
and set so near together that they seem, as it were, 
to lack elbow room; and, under such conditions, 
the best results in beauty and symmetry cannot be 
obtained. 

Perhaps the best view that one can get of Con- 
cord as a rural city is obtained from the cupola 
of the state house on any fair midsummer day. 
This point of vantage carries us up above the tops 
of the tallest elms and maples that line the streets ; 
the comfortable homes of the inhabitants seem to 
be embowered beneath them ; while the towers of 
the churches peer through their branches, and add 
to the picturesqueness of the view. Concord would 
be a dreary place to live in if denuded of her trees. 
Those who, in the early years of her history, were 
far-sighted enough to begin the planting of shade 
trees along the streets, builded, or rather planted, 
better than they knew ; and to them these lines are 
especially applicable : 

Who plants a tree for future years. 
Stays not with his own doubts and fears, 
But reaches out with thoughtful care, 



Wayside Jottings 131 

With ardent hope aud earnest i)ra.ver. 
To make more bright and glad the morn 
Of generations yet unborn. 

The pioneer in this tree planting in Concord was 
the Kev. Timothy Walker, the first minister of the 
town, who on May 22, 1764, set out the elms at 
the Walker home, which was then the parsonage. 
There were originally eight of them, but three have 
succumbed to old age, and those remaining will in 
time follow suit. In his diary, ]\Ir. Walker, against 
the date above given, makes this brief entry : ' ' Set 
out eight ehn trees about my house." That was 
something over one hundred and forty-four years 
ago ; the elm saplings were probably a dozen years 
old, so that the remaining five of these patriarchal 
elms are something over one hundred and fifty- 
six years old. A few years ago, the largest of 
these trees, three feet from the ground, had a cir- 
cumference of eighteen feet and five inches. 

Some years ago the entire length of Main Street 
was planted with shade trees. Now, between Cen- 
ter and Pleasant Streets, which mainly comprises 
the business center of the city, no trees remain. 
Mr. Walker states in his chapter on "Trees," in 
the "History of Concord," that "there were then 
two hundred and eighty-nine trees, mainly elms 
and maples, on this street. The history of the 
Walker elms suggests some one hundred and 
seventy-five to two hundred years as the allotted 
age in Concord of the American ehn. The plant- 
ing of shade trees along the streets doubtless origin- 



132 Wayside Jottings 

ated in the towns in Massachusetts, from whence 
Concord's earliest settlers came, and this custom 
was brought over from England." 

Of course, the Webster elm at the North End, 
planted in 1782, bears off the palm for symmetry 
and beauty. But there is an elm at the South End, 
standing near the junction of South and Clinton 
Streets, on land belonging to Charles H. Noyes, 
that is a close second. In fact, some of the South- 
Enders think it the equal of its North End brother. 
Perhaps it would not be an apt illustration to say 
that it was "a brand plucked from the burning," 
but its early history, as told the writer by the late 
Jeremiah S. Noyes, is as follows : Mr. Noyes, when 
a boy, lived in the one-story red house near which 
this elm is standing; in fact, we think he was born 
there. A clump of sapling elms was standing near 
the house, and his mother told young Jeremiah to 
cut all of them down but one. This noble elm is 
the sapling of one hundred years ago, and an ap- 
propriate name for it would be the Noyes elm. 

Further along on Clinton Street, at its junction 
v\'ith Fruit Street, there is another elm that is a 
clo.se second to the Noyes elm. The writer is not 
informed as to its history, whether it was planted 
or came up of its own accord. As it stands on the 
opposite side of Fruit Street from the house where 
the late Isaac Clement lived, it could appropriately 
be named the Clement elm. 

M^hen we come to rock maples, there are a num- 
ber of fine specimens on the streets and in the 




Concord V. M. C. A. BuiUliiii; 




1 nitarian Clnircli 



Wayside Jottings 133 

parks, and especially on the New Hampshire State 
Hospital grounds. These are trees that have had a 
chance to spread themselves in all directions like 
the traditional "green bay tree." The writer 
thinks the largest rock maple is standing before 
the cottage near the corner of Pleasant and Fruit 
Streets. Its branches cover an area of at least fifty 
feet, and furnish all the shade that is needed for 
that domicile. Another rock maple is on the line 
of West Washington Street, just east of its junction 
with Warren ; and two others are out at Millville, 
one in John H. Mercer's front yard, the other stand- 
ing in front of the farm house, belonging to the St. 
Paul's School, just beyond the Orphans' Home. 
There are but few shapely maples on the line of 
Concord's streets; and on some of the streets about 
every other tree ought to be removed. This opinion 
is supported by William Solotaroff, of the ''shade 
tree commission" of New Jersey. In an article in 
the Ladies' Home Journal he says: "There can be 
no greater mistake in street tree planting than in 
setting trees too close together. After a few years 
they interfere with each other's growth, cut off 
the necessary light and air. Thirty-five feet, at 
least, is the average distance apart that shade trees 
should be set to allow them room for perfect de- 
velopment." The writer lately noticed two large 
trees on the line of Pleasant Street, one an elm, 
and the other a maple, standing within six feet of 
each other. 

The writer has been interested in the splendid 



134 Wayside Jottings 

grove of white oaks standing on the New Hamp- 
shire State Hospital grounds. There must be all 
of a hundred of them, and from their gnarled 
appearance, they have attained to a good old age. 
Probably there was once an oak forest that covered 
a good part of these grounds, these being the sur- 
vivors. They remind one of George W. Bungay's 
lines in his "Ode to Labor": 

The mouareb oak, the woodlaud's pride. 

Whose trunk is seamed with lightning scars. 
Toil launches on the restless tide, 

And there unfurls the flag of stars. 

But there is no more "launching on the restless 
tide, ' ' or the unfurling ' ' the flag of stars, ' ' on the 
seventy-four-gun man-of-war, for its place is taken 
by the armored battleship. 

The monarch oak, however, in Concord, was 
planted by the hand of Nature in a back pasture 
on the summit of Stickney Hill in Ward Seven. 
In the Monitor of April 11, 1902, the writer gave 
an account of this tree, its size and probable age. 
It stood on the farm of Isaac P. Clifford, now 
o^vned by W. "W. Farwell. It measured at that 
time twenty-two feet and three inches in circum- 
ference, three feet above its base. Mr. Clifford 
measured it in 1888, and in the fourteen interven- 
ing years there was a gain of seven inches. If that 
was the rate of increase, year after year, it was a 
sturdy sapling when Washington was born in the 
year 1732, something over one hundred and seventy- 
eight years ago, and the writer took the liberty of 



Wayside Jottings 135 

naming it the Washington oak. The account of 
this oak in the Monitor came to the notice of the 
editor of the Youth's Companion, and in an edito- 
rial he remarked that, "although Doctor Holmes 
cherished a fondness for fine elms, it is safe to say 
that he would have appreciated the splendid white 
oak which a correspondent of the Concord Monitor 
located on the Clifford farm, near the town line 
between Concord and Hopkinton, N. H. The sub- 
stance of poetry is in a tree like this which meas- 
ures twenty-two feet and three inches in circum- 
ference. . . . This tree must have appeared in 
the world years before the United States did. But 
the republic, once it took root, grew faster. ' ' 

The palm for majesty and beauty has generally 
been awarded to the white oak, and the red oak has 
never been very popular either for shade or for fuel, 
especially for fuel, as it is hard to season. But in 
an interesting volume of nearly three hundred 
pages, entitled, "Our Trees and How to Know 
Them," Mr. Clarence M. "Weed says: "The red 
oak is one of the most desirable trees for shade 
and ornament. When successfully transplanted, 
it grows rapidly, and is an admirable tree for street 
purposes. This species grows more rapidly than 
other oaks, and thrives best in a well-drained, 
sandy clay soil where there is a fair amount of 
moisture. ' ' 

From this volume we also learn that there are 
one hundred and thirty-eight varieties of trees, — 
aside from fruit trees, — in the United States. Of 



136 Wayside Jottings 

these, there are twenty-one varieties of pines, thir- 
teen of oak, eleven of birch, eleven of willow and 
poplar, eight of maples, seven of walnut, eight of 
elm, and five of ash. 

The most famous oak in all New England was 
the Charter Oak of Hartford, Ct. It was a white 
oak, and the older readers of the "Jottings" espe- 
cially will remember the story of this tree, as told 
in the history of New England that they studied 
in the "little red school house." 

The story goes that when James, Duke of York, 
ascended the throne of England and sent Andros 
to take away all colonial charters, Connecticut 
alone refused to surrender hers. Andros was 
furious over this defiance, and October 31, 1687, 
he returned to the assembly hall of Hartford with 
a body of soldiers and demanded instant surrender 
of the charter, which lay in a box on the table. A 
hot discussion followed. Finally Andros stretched 
out his hand to seize the disputed paper. Then 
the candles were sudclenh' extinguished, and the 
people who had gathered on the street outside 
rushed in a disorderly crowd into the hall. There 
was a period of wild confusion in the dark, and 
when the candles were finally re-lighted no charter 
was to be found. It had been removed by Captain 
Wadsworth and concealed in the oak, which ever 
afterward bore its name. 

The oak was even then old. When the first 
settlers were clearing their land the Indians begged 
that it might be spared. "It has been a guide of 




First National liaiiU liiiildiii;^ 



Wayside Jottings 137 

our ancestors for centuries," they said, "as to the 
time of planting our corn. When the leaves are 
the size of a mouse's ears, then is the time to put 
seed into the ground." The Indians' request was 
granted, and the tree, afterward becoming the 
custodian of the lost charter, became famous for 
all time. It fell in a windstorm August 21. 1856, 
and so deeply was it venerated that at sunset on 
the day of its fall the bells of the city were tolled 
and a band of music played funeral dirges over 
its ruins. 

XXV. 

If some of the old-time storekeepers of Concord 
could re-visit the glimpses of the moon, or at least 
that part included in the east side of North Main 
Street, they would get a genuine surprise in look- 
ing at the store windows of Harry G. Emmons and 
David E. ]\Iurphy, which may be considered as up- 
to-date in all respects. One of those old-time mer- 
chants or storekeepers, as they were generally 
called, was Col. Perkins Gale, whose store was in 
Sanborn's old block. He was rather peculiar in 
his make-up, and was accustomed to express his 
feelings of surprise by the expression "My life!" 
No doubt he would use this expression a number 
of times over if he could take a look at the at- 
tractive windows in these stores. And if Gen. 
Joseph Low, the first mayor of Concord, and for 
Avhom Low's block was named, could see it, he 
would hardly recognize it after the extensive re- 



138 Wayside Jottings 

modelling and enlarging to which it has been sub- 
jected. 

How different is the display of goods as seen in 
these stores, from what was the custom in former 
times! The store windows then contained only a 
few samples of goods, and these were not changed 
very often, and were liable to become shopworn. 
Cotton cloth, calico, ginghams, yarns, etc., was 
about the sum total of the window display on the 
dry goods side of the store; and a miscellaneous 
display in the window of the side of the store given 
over to West India goods, hardware, boots and 
shoes. This was a country store of the olden time 
and a department store on a small scale. It served 
a good purpose, however, in the distribution of the 
necessities of life, and a trader who conducted one 
of them honestly, built up a good trade, was trust- 
ed by his customers for fair dealings, retired when 
along in years with a competence. A good illus- 
tration of this kind of a merchant, and who has 
not passed out of the remembrance of the present 
generation, was the late Franklin Evans. 

About the year 1850, or on the completion of Ex- 
change block and Low's block, a new and improved 
style of store window was introduced into Concord. 
In place of a small window that generally jutted 
out on the sidewaU^, a sort of bay window, which 
always had shutters, barred and bolted at night to 
keep out thieves, — a large window with four 
squares of glass in front and two on the side, with 
a door in a recess, — was the stvle that came into 



Wa/yside Jottings 139 

Togue. This allowed a better display of goods, 
gave a better light and made the interior of the 
store in every way more attractive. 

William W. Easterbrook was proltalily the first 
merchant in Concord to open a store devoted ex- 
clusively to dry goods. His store was situated in 
the old Stickney block, which went up in flames 
and smoke in the great fire of 1851. It was on the 
site of the store next south of the drug store in 
the new Stickney block, now a part of the J. M. 
Stewart Sons' Company store. This store was 
known far and near as the "Great Eight," prob- 
ably that being the numl)er of the block in which it 
was situated. It was advertised quite extensively, 
and for a time did a thriving business, but fail- 
ure overtook the proprietor, and in the early fifties 
he migrated, as so many others did, to the newly 
discovered El Dorado of California, and died there. 
If any one will take the trouble to examine the 
files of the Concord papers way back in the forties, 
they will find the "Great Eight" advertisements, 
with pictures illustrating the exterior and interior 
of the store. Henry A. Newhall was another dry 
goods merchant. When Low's block was built he 
occupied the south store, and where in later years 
David E. ]\Iurphy commenced his successful career. 
Though there have been a number of changes in 
the firms doing business in this store, it has always 
been known as a dry goods stand, and from one 
store it has been enlarged so as to include three 
stores. 



140 Wayside Jottings 

It is doubtful if there are any descendants of the 
old-time merchants that are doing business as mer- 
chants in Concord today. Prominent among these 
were the Hutchius, Charles, George. Abel and 
George H. There were the Evans. Samuel, Na- 
thaniel, Nathaniel. Jr., and Franklin. There were 
the Gaults. William and John A. Then in addi- 
tion to these were Benjamin Grover, James Pev- 
erly, J. C. A. Hill, Charles W. Sargent, B. P. 
Whipple and C. C. Webster, in the grocei'y or dry 
goods line; David Winkley, W. G. Shaw, John G. 
Lincoln and F. C. and A. J. Edmunds in the cloth- 
ing or tailoring line ; while Allison & Gault, E. H. 
Rollins, H. B. Poster and Bro\^^l & ^lorgan dis- 
pensed drugs and medicines. Of all the old tirms 
once in business on North Main Street, only one, 
T. W. & J. H. Stewart, remains. 

Of course, such stores as Emmons', Robinson's 
and ^lurphy's contain a nnich larger stock of goods 
and a greater variety than can be found in smaller 
stores. The result is that the latter are crowded 
out of business. And there are only three strictly 
dry goods stores on North ^lain Street, where not 
many years ago there were at least seven or eight. 
Whether this consolidation will extend in time to 
other branches of trade, so that there will be only 
three clothing stores, in place of five, or two shoe 
stores in place of the same number, is, of course, 
not known. There was an elimination of two of 
these stores in 1906, when the Emmons store was 
enlarged by the taking in of the Adams & Hutch- 



m 




T*Ti1^ ^ * 



T** wi fi 



■I iir !ir 'p sM 






I m 




N. H. Saviiiirs Hank 
K. C. Kastman^ Bonkstore 



Wayside Jottings 141 

inson clothing store, and the Murphy store was en- 
larged by the taking in of the store occupied by 
C. W. Clark & Son. 



XXVI. 

The writer not long ago had a conversation with 
Calvin C. Webster, the veteran grocer, who is still 
in business on South Main Street (since deceased). 
He enjoys the distinction of being the oldest gro- 
ceryman now in the trade in Concord, and dates 
his commencement in this business way back in the 
forties, when he entered the employ of the late 
George Hutchins as clerk, and who kept an old-time 
country store on the east side of North Main Street, 
just north of the old Phenix Hotel. ]\Ir. "Webster 
served as an apprentice in the business for four 
years, receiving a stipulated sum of money for his 
services, with an increase of $25 a year during this 
time. It was at an interesting period in the history 
of Concord, at a time w^hen the town was the 
terminus of the railroad to Boston, and passengers 
to and from the towns to the north and west were 
conveyed by stage, and freight by teams, so that 
the place w^as an important center for travel and 
trade, and the taverns and stores on ]Main Street 
greatly profited thereby. 

George Hutchins will be remembered by old resi- 
dents of Concord as an energetic business man, and 
anyone in his employ got a practical training that 
was valuable to him in after years. In those days, 



142 Wayside Jottings 

all of the stores kept a variety of goods for sale, 
such as dry goods, groceries, hardware, crockery, 
boots and shoes, and as "General Putnam," the 
old-time crier of Concord, used to say, when closing 
an announcement of an auction, ''other articles too 
numerous to mention." Although there were quite 
a number of country stores on Main Street in those 
times, those that did the most business were the 
stores at the North End, kept l\v Pecker & Lang, 
which stood on the site of the residence of Henry 
McFarland, the store of Mr. Hutchins, and one at 
the south end of Main Street. Afterwards the 
stores became more specialized, so that stores de- 
voted mainly to dry goods, boots and shoes, hard- 
ware and other kinds of goods have nearly super- 
seded the variety stores. The department stores in 
our large cities are patterned after the country 
store of sixty years ago, though of course a larger 
assortment of goods is kept for sale. 

Mr. Webster having finished his four years' ser- 
vice with Mr. Hutchins, as clerk, about the year 
1850, much to Mr. Hutchins' regret, decided to go 
into the grocery business for himself. He formed 
a partnership with ^Ir. Tuttle, under the firm name 
of Webster & Tuttle. They bought out the stock 
of goods and good will of Samuel Evans, who was 
doing business in a store that was situated in the 
three-story wooden building that stood on the site 
of the Smith block. This firm was the first to make 
an innovation in the matter of delivering goods to 
their customers, which has continued to the present 



Wayside Jottings 143 

time, in that a delivery wagon was employed for 
carrying out groceries. Prior to this time, cus- 
tomers either carried home their purchases in their 
arms, or if too heavy to carry in that way, a wheel- 
barrow was called into service. Henry McFarland, 
in his ' ' Sixty Years in Concord, ' ' says : " No grocer 
of that day delivered by wagon the goods sold to 
his customers. He surrendered the commodities 
at his store, and the purchaser got them home as 
best he could. In such a case a wheelbarrow was 
used, and my father would despatch me to the 
grocery store of Deacon Nathaniel Evans, which 
stood on the site of the Chase block." 

A picture of Main Street taken in the forties, or 
in the early years of the fifties, if compared with 
one taken now, would show an almost complete 
change in its appearance. The buildings that have 
survived this lapse of time are the wooden build- 
ings on the west side of the street, one occupied by 
H. P. Bowers, just north of the Masonic Temple, 
and the New American House, oppo^te Bridge 
Street. All on the east side of the street have been 
substantially rebuilt, the wooden buildings that 
were mostly destroyed by fire have been replaced 
by brick blocks more or less ornate in their style of 
architecture. But as great a change has taken 
place in the individuals and firms that carried on 
business in the stores on the line of the street. 
Only two firms that were doing business in the 
years of which we speak are in trade today, and 
these are not doing business at the old stands. The 



144 Wayside Jottings 

firm of T. W. & J. H. Stewart, tailors, and Calvin 
C. Webster, grocer, are the only ones. James 
Hazelton, who retired a few years ago, was in the 
millinery business, and Henry B. Foster, recently 
deceased, was the last of the old apothecaries. 

Suppose we could turn back the tide of time and 
walk up Main Street and note the firms and stores 
a& they were in the early fifties. Starting at the 
corner of Main and Pleasant Streets, and going up 
the west side we should find the following stores 
and firms : On the corner of Pleasant Street was 
the store of W. P. Hardy, grocer ; in the next build- 
ing the liquor store of D. G. Fuller; following 
along we find Currier & Knox, stoves and tinware , 
Nathaniel Evans, grocer ; Morrill & Silsby, printers 
and bookbinders ; Olds & Edmunds, tailors. In 
the Odd Fellows' building were C. S. Rogers, 
grocer, and H. B. Foster, drugs and medicines. 
From Warren Street to School Street were the fol- 
lowing: On the corner at Warren and Main 
Streets were three "ten footers" in which were 
York's auction store; James Hazelton, millinery; 
J. D. Cooper, brass founder. Further along the 
street were Col. William Kent's insurance office; 
C. W. Allen, barber ; Chase Hill, boots and shoes ; 
H. Fessenden, harnesses; Currier & Hall, book- 
binders; ending with Deacon B. Damon's home, on 
the south corner of School and ]\Iain Streets. 

On the north corner of School Street, where is 
now the Board of Trade building, was the home of 
William Low, then next the Morse telegraph office, 




KukW llot.'l 



Wayside Jottings 145 

Columbian Hotel, Thomas Stuart, landlord ; while 
in the Aver block, at the southeast corner of the 
state house yard were the stores of Franklin Evans, 
Benjamin Grover, variety stores; and the Franklin 
book store, kept by John F. Brown. The Ameri- 
can House, John Gass, landlord, stood on the corner 
of Main and Park Streets; then B. Palmer, apothe- 
cary; J. P. Kimball, grocer; James Jones, gun- 
smith; M. M. Kelsey, millinery; and J. E. Lang, 
insurance, these last two occupying the lower story 
of what is now the New American House. 

On the east side of ]\Iain Street, commencing at 
the corner of Pleasant Street Extension, we would 
find the Elm House, Carter & Priest, landlords ; 
the home of H. Fessenden ; the old Rogers house 
on the site of the First National Bank. On the 
north corner of Main and Depot Streets was the 
three-story wooden block, occupied by tenements 
in both ends and in the center by stores of S. Evans 
and B. P. Whipple, grocers. An old wooden build- 
ing stood on the site of Phenix block, occupied 
by the Wymans as a meat market. Next was the 
old Phenix Hotel, A. C. Pierce, landlord; north of 
it the store of Hutehins & Co., dry goods, the eating 
house of Sinclair & Leighton ; the shoe store of 
L. A. Hazelton ; and the restaurant of Samuel 
Clark; these last two places of business being in 
the Athenian building, which stood on the site of 
the Cyrus Hill block. Next we come to the Low 
block, one of the first brick blocks erected in Con- 
cord, occupied by T. W. & J. H. Stewart, tailors; 



146 Wayside Jottings 

Cyrus Hill, hatter; H. A. Newhall, dry goods; 
J. G. Lincoln, tailor; then we come to the "ten 
footers," occupied respectively by L. D. Evans, 
boots and shoes ; S. G. Sylvester, picture frames and 
matches; B. Gage, boots and shoes; G. Bullock, 
grocer ; J. B. Stanley, jeweler ; B. W. Sanborn, 
book store ; and Tripp & Osgood, printers and sta- 
tioners. In the Exchange block were James Bev- 
erly, boots and shoes ; Dustin & Shaw, clothing ; 
Allison & Gault, druggists; Porter & Rolf e, hard- 
ware. Then next was the Eagle Coffee House, Wil- 
liam Walker, landlord ; the two stores in each end 
of it being occupied respectively by J. Carter, 
jeweler; J. & C. Munroe, confectioners. Next we 
come to the Stickney new block, the south store oc- 
cupied by E. H. Rollins, druggist; N. Evans, Jr., 
tailor; W. H. Page, carpetings and crockery; J. P. 
Johnson, dry goods; Moore & Cilley, hardware. 
From this point to Bridge Street were the two old 
Stickney blocks, the stores of which were occupied 
by M. M. Chick, jeweler; D. M. Dearborn, music 
store; J. Grover, hatter; A. Webster, grocer; C. 
Thorn, boots and shoes; J. D. Johnson, harness 
maker. This, we believe, is a complete list, or at 
least a nearly complete one, of those who were in 
business on Main Street at the time we have men- 
tioned. Most of the buildings and blocks in which 
they were located went up in flame and smoke, and 
to this fact we are mainly indebted for this change 
in the appearance of the street. Those who were 
in business have nearly all gone to "that bourne 



Wayside Jottings 147 

from which no traveller returns." And it is a 
pertinent question to ask, who of those doing busi- 
ness on Main Street today will be doing so fifty 
years from now, or in the year 1957. 

XXVII. 

Concord has not usually been regarded as a 
manufacturing city, nevertheless there are a num- 
ber of manufacturing plants in this old town, 
which, if brought in proximity to one another, 
together with the homes of the employees, would 
make a good-sized village. Take, for instance, the 
plants at the South End, in "Wards Six, Seven and 
Eight, which comprise the Boston & Maine Rail- 
road shops, the Holt Brothers Manufacturing Com- 
pany, the Hutchinson Building Company, the Ab- 
bot-Downing Company, and the Ford & Kimball 
Foundry plant. In all these, we should find that 
a large amount of work is being done year in and 
year out, by probably a thousand or more skilled 
mechanics and machinists, who find employment in 
these various avocations. If the Creator of the 
universe had so ordered it, or, perhaps, to be more 
strictly up-to-date, if evolution had evoluted in 
such a way that Sewall's Falls had been located 
further down stream, say near the Loudon bridge, 
then Concord would have stood a good chance to be 
classed as one of the manufacturing cities on the 
banks of the Merrimack. 

While Concord has also the reputation of being 



148 Wayside Jottings 

one of the pleasantest rural cities in New England, 
at least, do any of its dwellers ever think of the 
amount of mental, not to say of physical, suffering 
that is here experienced, probably exceeding that 
of any other city in the state? The New Hamp- 
shire Hospital for the Insane is pleasantly located, 
we might say ideally located. In this institution, 
which covers more ground than any other in the 
city or state^ there is a vast amount of mental 
suffering among its six hundred or more inmates. 
Then there are the state prison, the Margaret Pills- 
bury and the Memorial Hospitals, and we have in 
all these institutions as inmates those who are ex- 
periencing the shady side of human existence and 
to whom life seems to be hardly worth the living. 
How few of our citizens who are in the full enjoy- 
ment of their reason and their health, who have 
nice homes and are pleasantly situated in life, with 
a good bank account, ever bestow a thought, or per- 
haps care for the conditions that through various 
causes overtake their more unfortunate brothers 
and sisters of the human family! 

It is some over twenty-six years since the horse 
cars commenced running through Main Street to 
West Concord, and twenty-three years since they 
commenced running to Penacook, to be, in turn, 
succeeded by the electrics about seventeen years ago. 
How many, as they take the pleasant trip from the 
South End terminus to West Concord or Penacook, 
ever think of Moses Humphrey, to whom, perhaps, 
more than to anyone else, we are indebted for this 



Wayside Jottings 149 

cheap and convenient mode of transit? He began 
agitating the subject of a street railroad when he 
had attained the age of seventy-three years. He 
became its building agent and afterwards its super- 
intendent, and this at an age when most men feel 
like retiring from active life. In the face of some 
opposition, he kept "everlastingly at it" until the 
line to West Concord was completed and the first 
"bob-tail car" ran from the Abbot-Downing shops, 
where it was built, to Fosterville, on April 21, 
1881. Horses, at first, it will be remembered, were 
used in drawing the cars all their weary way to 
Penacook; afterwards a "dummy" engine was em- 
ployed in drawing them to and from Fosterville 
and Penacook. At that time, as the writer remem- 
bers it, the running of this engine south of Foster- 
ville was not allowed because it was not considered 
safe to have it go through the center of Main 
Street. That was a few years before the "auto- 
mobile craze" struck the country. How much 
more dangerous would it be for this engine to pass 
at regular intervals along Main Street at a mod- 
erate rate of speed, and on a track, than it is now 
for a large touring car to speed along as it is 
a mind to and taking any part of the street for 
its course? The automobile, it is said, "has come 
to stay. ' ' If so, and it is not practicable or too ex- 
pensive to have separate roads for the auto out in 
the country, then turn outs ought to be made, 
especially on the narrow highways, similar to those 



150 Wayside Jottings 

that are made in the winter time when the snow 
is deep and passing is difficult. 

Some idea of what the railways, both steam and 
electric, have done for Concord, can be formed 
from a reading of Henry McFar land's interesting 
chapter on "Concord as a Railroad Center," in 
the new ' ' History of Concord. ' ' He says : ' ' There 
are now within the city limits twenty -nine and two- 
tenths miles of main tracks and thirty-six and 
eight-tenths miles of sidetracks, almost enough to 
build a single track road on an air line to Boston. 
The steam and electric car tracks within the city 
limits aggregate over eighty-three miles. Existing 
station buildings cover ten and one-half acres of 
ground, and, including the right of way, are valued 
at $719,312.34, not much less than half the taxable 
valuation of the whole town as published in the 
journal of the Legislature of 1840. The chief of 
these buildings is the passenger station and train 
shed, covering 100,000 square feet of area. It was 
built in 1885, at a cost of $250,000, from designs 
made by Bradford L. Gilbert of New York, and 
its excellences have been so apparent to railroad 
men that the same architect was afterward em- 
ployed to plan the reconstruction of the Grand 
Central Station in New^ York. The railway shops 
at the South End, constructed in 1897, occupy six 
and fifteen one-hundredths acres of a seventy-acre 
tract. The great freight yard east of the passenger 
station occupies an area of fifty acres and cost 
about $150,000. It requires twelve switching 



Wayside Jottings 151 

crews (oue hundred and sixteen men), and has 
been regarded as the best similar yard in the coun- 
try. Counting each arrival and departure, there 
are about one hundred daily passenger and freight 
trains in the summer season, and the remark of an 
editorial wag years ago that our railway facilities 
were such that a man could start from here to go 
anywhere is abundantly justified. The average 
number of railway employees at Concord is now 
1.346, and the yearly payrolls aggregate $801,170." 
But how about the new method of transportation 
through the upper air ? Are we to have a balloon 
craze, the same as we have had an automobile 
craze? Will the balloon put the other modes of 
transit out of commission? C. J. Glidden, who 
will be remembered as the originator of the flying 
automobile trip through this state a few years 
since, says : ' ' The next thing we shall have is 
cross- Atlantic trips by balloon. An elevation of 
three miles would bring you to a wind moving say 
fifty miles an hour and with the aid of that you 
would make the trip to Europe in about sixty 
hours. I think the time is near at hand when we 
shall order a balloon as we order a carriage. Com- 
panies are already formed for that purpose, and 
with balloons, you know, there is positively no 
danger." Perhaps not, Mr. Glidden, but the most 
of us feel safer on terra firma. 



152 Wayside Jottings 

XXVIII. 

Dwellers in the valley of the Merrimack should 
be proud of the river that meanders in its some- 
what devious course tlu-ough the fertile intervales. 
Whittier's birthplace was in this valley, and in his 
poem, "Our River," he says that it is "mountain 
born," and he adds: 

The heathen streams of naiads boast, 
But ours of man and woman. 

That it is "mountain born" is evidenced by the 
fact that it mainly takes its rise in the "White 
Hills," where its headwaters as far as the City of 
Franklin are known as the Pemigewasset ; while, 
on its course to the sea, it receives the waters of 
the Winipesaukee, the Contoocook, the Soucook, 
the Suncook, the Piscataquog, the Souhegan, and 
the Nashua, all Indian names; until at its mouth, 
in the old town of Newburyport, it resolves itself 
into "old ocean's gray and melancholy waste." 

Probably there is no valley in the world that has 
a more intelligent, industrious and law-abiding 
population than the Merrimack. Its water-power 
is said to turn more spindles than any other river 
in the world; and Manchester, Nashua. Lowell and 
Lawrence are a great quartette of manufacturing 
cities in which New Hampshire and ^lassachusetts 
may well take pride. 

While the Merrimack is now mainly employed in 
turning the turbines in the cotton mills along its 
course, in the former davs, before the era of rail- 



Wayside Jottings 153 

roads, for a portion of the year it served as a 
waterway for the transportation of merchandise up 
and down stream in canal-boats or barges. It com- 
prised the period between the year 1814, when the 
first boat of the Merrimack Boating Company 
made its upward trip to Concord, and the year 
1842, when the Concord Railroad was completed to 
that place and the boating days on the Merrimack 
were numbered. 

A reminder of this method of transportation is 
seen in "Hayward's Gazetteer of New England," 
published in 1839, in which an engraving of the 
storehouse of this boating company at Concord, 
which stood mainly over the water on the west 
bank of the river, so as to permit the boats to pass 
under it to load and unload their freight. In the 
foreground is seen a canal-boat under sail com- 
mencing its voyage down the river. It was here 
that President Monroe, on his visit to New Hamp- 
shire in the year 1817, embarked on a boat named 
the President, to view the beautiful scenery along 
the river banks and to pass through the canal locks 
at Garvin 's FalLs. some four miles below. 

Those who have ridden on the Southern Division 
of the Boston & ]\Iaine Railroad in the summertime, 
from Concord to Lowell, or vice versa, do not need 
to be told that as the route, for the most of the way, 
lies along the river's banks, the views are beautiful. 
So in these old boating days, as a writer in the new 
"History of Concord" has expressed himself: 

"There must have been a charm to the ]\Ierri- 



154 Wayside Jottings 

mack in the days of this inland navigation. There 
was nowhere more delightful water, no greener 
shores,, no more fragrant air, no sweeter bird-songs. 
Here was the leap and splash of the salmon, there 
a cloud of pigeons that ought never to have been 
called wild and are now almost extinct. The sound 
of the boatman's horn floated along the valley. 
Sails could be seen across points of land, and con- 
jecture busied itself as to whose might be the 
coming boat. To a careless observer this might 
seem the land of the lotus; but Toil stood beside 
the boatman." 

That "Toil stood beside the boatman" is seen in 
the way that the boat was pushed along its course 
by main strength in the fifty miles of upward trip 
from the junction of the Merrimack with the Mid- 
dlesex canal two miles above the City of Lowell. 
The main means of propulsion against the current 
were the ' ' setting-poles ' ' in the hands of two hardy 
boatmen. These poles, commonly called "pike- 
poles," were about fifteen feet in length, two 
inches in diameter, made round and smooth out of 
white ash, with the lower end armed with an iron 
point. To propel the boat by "poling," a boat- 
man stood on either side of the bow and thrust 
the pike end of his pole down beside the boat in 
a slanting direction toward the stern, until it 
reached the bottom of the river, he placed his 
shoulder against the end of the pole ; with his feet 
braced against the cross timbers in the bottom of 
the boat, and exerted his whole strength to push 



Wayside Jottings 155 

the boat forward. As the boat moved onward, he 
stepped along the bottom of the boat, still bracing 
his shoulders firmly against the pole. When he 
had reached the stern, he walked forward to the 
bow, trailing the pike-pole, where he thrust it in 
again to the river bottom, and thus repeated the 
pushing process for the whole distance from Lowell 
to Concord. 

The passage down stream was, of course, easier 
and quicker, the boatmen relying principally on 
"scull" oars for the means of propulsion, along 
with the current. These oars were about the same 
length as the pike-poles, having six-inch blades on 
the lower part of the oars. 

The quickest trip was made in 1833 by Samuel 
Hall, John Ray and Joseph M. Rowell, who started 
with a boat-load from the mouth of the Piscata- 
quog at eight o'clock a. m. on June 30, went to 
Boston, got a boat-load of goods and reached their 
starting point on the evening of July 3, having 
been only four days on the trip. The last trip of 
a boat through the Middlesex canal was made in 
the year 1851. 

As a rule, travel was suspended at sunset, the 
boatmen planning to be near a convenient stopping 
place along the route at nightfall, where the boat 
was tied up for the night. The passage through 
the Middlesex canal from Boston to Lowell con- 
sumed one day ; another day enabled them to reach 
Cromwell's Falls, fifteen miles further up the 
stream ; the third day took them through the Amos- 



156 Wayside Jottings 

keag locks, and the fourth, everything proving 
favorable, found them at their destination. 

"There is no doubt that the adventurous lives 
led by these boatmen tended to bring out the 
rougher element of their natures; but they were 
always faithful to duty, kind-hearted to a fellow- 
being in distress, and many of them carried be- 
neath their coarse jackets more than an ordinary 
allowance of real manhood. They belonged to a 
necessary class of citizens in their day, which in 
the evolution of the swiftly following years has 
been supplanted by another, and only a memory 
of their usefulness remains. The shriek of the 
locomotive whistle ended the boatman's song, while 
his inspiring watchword, as he toiled laboriously 
toward the upper waters of old Amoskeag, 'One 
more stroke for old Derryfield, ' found a death- 
knell in the heartless snort of the iron horse, which 
threw at once these hardy boatmen out of the only 
employment they knew." 

XXIX. 

Not only has the Merrimack in former days been 
the means for the transportation of merchandise, 
as w^as stated in the last number of these "Jot- 
tings, ' ' but in the midway years of the last century, 
timber, cut in the north country, in the shape of 
pine and spruce logs, was floated down the river to 
the sawmills in Low^ell and there made ready for 
market. Just when this method of getting this 



Wayside Jottings 157 

kind of raw material down the river commenced, 
or when it ceased, the writer is not informed. 
But while the IMerrimack was thus utilized employ- 
ment was given to a class of hardy red-shirted river 
men, called the "Norcross men," who were em- 
ployed by the firm of Norcross & Co., having 
its headquarters at Lowell. These men were also 
practical lumbermen, and went into the woods 
in the winter, felled the pines or spruces, hauled 
them with their ox teams out on the ice in the river, 
and when it broke up in the spring and was bank- 
full the logs were carried do^\^l stream in large 
numbers; and these river men followed along after 
them to their destination. Their work was mainly 
to break up the ''jams" of logs that formed against 
the piers of bridges and to draw with their teams 
those that got stranded on the shores of the river. 
They pitched their camp at intervals near the bank 
of the river, where they ate and slept. The oxen 
drew their outfit from place to place. They were 
a rough class of men ; it was rough work and some- 
what dangerous withal, and they incurred a good 
deal of risk. Probably there was hardly a year 
that some of these men did not meet their death 
by drowning. The piers of the bridges and vari- 
ous falls on the river were the most dangerous 
places. Of the latter, there were in this section 
of the state Sewall's Falls in Concord, Turkey and 
Garvin's Falls in Bow, Hookett Falls in Hooksett, 
Amoskeag and Goff's Falls in Manchester. The 
"jams" that were formed at the piers of the 



158 Wayside Jottings 

bridges were broken up, one might say, in a scien- 
tific manner. There was usually one or more logs 
next to the pier that held the others back and it 
was the work of these men to get at these logs and 
free them from the rest. When they had suc- 
ceeded the whole jam would swing around into 
the current and float down stream again. When 
the jam started on its way the men had a lively 
time in getting to the shore. This operation had 
to be repeated, usually at every bridge on the 
river. 

It is related of Rev. Augustus Woodbury, pastor 
of the Unitarian Church in Concord in the fifties, 
of the last century, that he went out on a jam of 
logs at the Concord lower bridge, presumably to 
see the men work, and accidentally fell into the 
water. The current carried him down stream for 
a short distance under the logs, when he came up 
to the surface in a place that happened to be open 
in the jam. As the river men helped him ashore 
one of them was told that he was a Unitarian min- 
ister. He replied that "if he was a Unitarian, the 
parson was now a good Baptist. ' ' 

As before stated, the various falls were the other 
places where a good deal of hard work had to be 
done to liberate the logs that had got stranded. 
This was especially the case at Amoskeag Falls. 
One in looking at these falls from the vantage point 
of the bridge, which nearly spans them, and noting 
the boulders, large and small in the channel, won- 



Wayside Jottings 159 

ders how the river men ever succeeded in getting 
the logs down over them. 

Amoskeag Falls is easily the most interesting 
natural curiosity on the line of the Merrimack. It 
was a famous Indian resort for the purpose of fish- 
ing and feasting. Amoskeag means "the fishing 
place." Here it is said the famous sagamore of 
the Penacooks, Passaconaway, and his son, Wono- 
lancet, had one of their homes. The Mohawks 
were their deadly enemies and, in time of war 
between these hostile tribes, the Penacooks con- 
cealed their provisions in the cavities of the rocks 
on the large island below the falls. They believed 
that the Great Spirit had cut them out for that 
purpose. The water pours down over the falls 
today with the same impetuosity as when Rev. 
James McGregor, the first white man, discovered 
them, or when in later years Gen. John Stark 
worked in his sawmill that stood near them, and 
where, it is said, he received the news of the fight 
at Lexington and Concord. Though General Stark 
did not, like some other men of the Revolution, 
''leave the plowshare in the mould, or the flocks 
and herds without a fold," yet he probably left a 
log on the sawmill carriage in an unfinished state, 
and mounting his horse started for the scene of the 
confiict, and rendered good service at Bunker Hill, 
as he did later at Bennington. 

As before stated, just when the method of float- 
ing the raw material, in the form of pine or spruce 
logs, down the Merrimack ceased, the writer is not 



160 Wayside Jottings 

informed ; probably somewhere in the sixties. The 
use of the portable steam mill, — that deadly foe 
of the forests — and the extension of the railroad 
into the domain of the White Hills, changed the 
way of transportation of lumber, so that now the 
sawing is done in the forests and the finished 
product, in the shape of all kinds of building 
material, is shipped on the platform freight cars, 
and this method will probably be continued until 
there will be no more lumber in the north country 
to ship to market. 

A rhymester has forecasted this condition of 
things in the following lines : 

"Woodman, spare that tree" — 

We sang it long ago ; 
But just the same the woodman came 

And laid the giants low. 
We turned them into tables, 

We chopped them into pegs, 
And things unique and styles antique, 

With queer, unsteady legs. 

Across a sterile plain 

The winter wind blows free ; 
On summer days the sun's hot rays 

Beat fierce as fierce can be. 
Ah, "Spare that tree" — the echo 

Falls on the desert air, 
But such is fate, 'tis all too late, 
There are no trees to spare. 




The " Wel)ster Klin "— KesiiU-iicc of M. 1). CiiiiiiiiinKs 



Wayside Jottings 161 

XXX. 

Wilson Flagg, in his "Woods and Bywaj^s of 
New England," says: "To my mind the elm is 
intimately associated with the old dwelling houses. 
Not very many of them are still extant; but wher- 
ever we see one it is almost invariably accompanied 
by an elm, standing in the open space that slopes 
from the front of the house." 

The finest and most symmetrical elm that the 
writer remembers of seeing is "standing in the 
open space" near the pleasant home of Milon D. 
Cummings, on the line of Fiske Street, at the north 
end of the city. The house is not an "old" one, 
for it took the place of one of the old square 
houses that Mr. Flagg mentions. This elm was 
caUed the "Webster Elm," or the "Coffin Ehn." 
for it was set out in 1782 by the Coffin brothers the 
year that Daniel Webster was born. Daniel Web- 
ster has been dead nearly fifty-six years, but this 
elm to all appearances is in its prime, though it has 
attained a good old age. 

Not long since, the writer, on going by this place 
in quest of information in regard to building opera- 
tions in Concord during the past season, seemed 
to hear a voice coming down from the branches of 
this elm, and, stopping his horse, he listened. 

"Hello, there, you man with a white horse! 
Are you the H. C. that writes the 'Wayside Jot- 
tings' for the Monitor f If you are I want to have 
a talk with you. I won't detain you long." 
11 



162 Wayside Jottings 

H. C. — "Well, I suppose I can't deny the soft 
impeachment. But are you going to criticise or 
commend the ' Jottings ' ? You know that Concord 
has its share of critics and some hypercritics. It 
is a good deal easier to criticise than it is to com- 
mend. ' ' 

Webster Elm. — "No, I do not intend to criticise, 
for I think the 'Jottings' are quite interesting. 
A while ago I understand you interviewed the rock 
maple and a white ash out on the line of the Pleas- 
ant Street boulevard, near 'Pleasant View,' and 
I wondered why you didn 't come up here and inter- 
view me. I am older than any of those trees out 
thero. and my memory goes back further. I felt 
somewhat slighted." 

H. C— "Well, I did not intend to slight you, 
but I do not get up to the North End very often. 
But, going along the street today, I could not 
help thinking what a splendid elm you have grown 
to be, one reason being, I suppose, that you have 
had plenty of room in which to spread yourself, 
like a green bay tree, in all directions." 

Webster Elm. — "Yes, they all say that I am the 
best-looking elm in town. I think Doctor Bouton 
had my picture in his 'History of Concord.' No 
doubt Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was an 
admirer of elms, would have liked to have seen 
me ; perhaps he did when he came to town to lec- 
ture before the Penacook Lyceum, 'way back in the 
fifties of the last century." 

H. C. — "You are getting along in years, though 



Wayside Jottings 163 

you seem to wear your age well. You must have 
an interesting history to teU of your Hfe at the 
North End, and you must have seen a good deal 
from your standpoint on the line of the street." 

Webster Elm. — "Yes, I am along in years, but 
I do not feel very old, but if the age of an elm is 
usually one hundred and thirty years I am about 
that age, if I have not passed it. I was set out in 
the year 1782 by Col. John Coffin and Capt. Enoch 
Coffin, brothers. That was one hundred and 
twenty-six years ago, and I was a sturdy sapling 
when they brought me from the intervale. I was 
named after Daniel Webster, from the fact that he 
was born that year ; and, after facing the storms of 
one hundred and twenty-six winters, I feel as 
though I could face as many more." 

H. C. — "It was a great honor to be named after 
Daniel Webster, as he was the greatest man that 
New Hampshire ever produced. I presume that 
you used to see him ride by when going to and 
from Concord, when he was a young man, as well 
as in the later years of his life, before the era 
of railroads?" 

Webster Elm. — "Yes, I used to see him pass by, 
as well as his brother, Ezekiel, both of whom lived 
in Boscawen or Salisbury. Ezekiel Webster 
dropped dead in the old court house while making 
a plea, I think, 'way back in the twenties." 

H. C. — "You say that you was set out in 1782. 
That, I think, was thirty-one years after the Old 
North Church, that stood nearly opposite, was built 



164 Wayside Jottings 

and which went up in flame and smoke on the night 
of November 28, 1870. You must have witnessed 
a good many interesting occurrences in those 
eighty-eight years?" 

Webster Elm. — ' ' Yes, I did witness a good many 
scenes that occured around the old church, and 
I ofttimes wished that I could have seen what 
occurred on the inside. You know that for some 
years it was the only place of worship in Concord, 
and in later years the principal place. A big con- 
gregation convened there on Sundays." 

H. C. — "It must have been quite a sight to see 
them come in on Sundays from all parts of the 
town, as 'going to meeting,' as they termed it, 
was a more universal custom than in these later 
days. ' ' 

Webster Elm. — "Yes, you should have seen them 
come in from East and West Concord, the Long 
Pond Road and from the South End. They came 
in all kinds of conveyances. Ofttimes the hus- 
band and wife came together on horseback, the 
wife seated on a pillion behind him. They dis- 
mounted at the 'horse-block,' a flat, circular stone 
placed near the church. It is now over in Joseph 
B. Walker's door-yard. Then came the first 'Con- 
cord wagons, ' made by Lewis Downing at the South 
End, and the 'One Hoss Shay.' The boys and 
girls who came from the Long Pond district usually 
walked in the summertime, carrying their shoes 
and stockings in hand and putting them on before 
they came to the church. Those were times when 



Wayside Jottings 165 

shoe-leather was dear, money scarce and economy 
was the watchword in the home of the farmer. 
It was also quite a sight when the services were 
through to see them depart in all directions for 
their homes, as they were anxious, after listening 
to two long sermons, to get home to their dinners." 

H. C. — "This was on Sunday. Do you remem- 
ber any occurrences that took place on week days ? ' ' 

"Webster Elm. — "Yes, a good many of them. 
They had a celebration every June, when the great 
and General Court met here, called 'Election Day.' 
An 'election sermon' was delivered by a minister 
before the governor and council and the members 
of the Legislature in the Old North. A procession 
was formed and they came up ]\Iain Street in great 
style. The day before this took place they had 
what was termed a 'nigger election,' when the col- 
ored brother was out in full force. Then, away 
back in the forties, there was a notable political 
meeting, when John P. Hale and Franklin Pierce 
had a debate on the political questions of the day. 
There was a large crowd in attendance. It was 
a case of 'nip and tuck' as to the arguments, and 
each side claimed the victory." 

H. C. — "Of course you remember the ministers 
that preached in the Old North?" 

Webster Elm. — "Yes, I remember the most of 
them. Timothy Walker, the first minister, died 
the year that I came here. But I remember Israel 
Evans, Asa McFarland and Nathaniel Bouton. 
They were all good men and true. Then after the 



166 Wayside Jottings 

Old North ceased to be used for worship and was 
the headquarters of the Methodist Biblical Insti- 
tute, for a number of years there were a lot of 
young men here who might be called ministers in 
embryo. ' ' 

H. C. — "You must have seen a good many 
funeral processions that have wended their way 
to the different cemeteries during these one hun- 
dred and twenty-six years?" 

Webster Elm. — "I have seen every procession 
that has passed into the Old North Cemetery during 
these years,, and also those that have gone by to 
the Blossom Hill and Calvary Cemeteries since 
they were consecrated. Every day, almost, a 
funeral procession goes by. One generation goes 
to 'the place appointed for all the living,' and 
another generation takes its place. As Thomas 
Gray says in his immortal ' Elegy ' : 

'The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power. 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave. 
Await alike the inevitable hour. 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.' " 

H. C. — -"There is nothing in the world truer 
than those lines. But you speak of the Old North 
'going up in flame and smoke' on the night of 
November 28, 1870. That must have been a sad 
sight to you 1 ' ' 

Webster Elm. — ^"It was a sad sight. We had 
been friends and near neighboi's for eighty-eight 
years and it was hard to lose its company. But 
it was a splendid sight. The frame of the church 



Wayside Jottings 167 

was white oak, and after the pine boarding had 
burned off. the frame, from the foundation to 
spire, stood out in bold relief as any Fourth of 
July fireworks. The cockerel on the top of the 
spire loomed up grand. No doubt the fire was 
set, as some fellows were skulking around before 
the fire broke out. Those were the days of the 
hand engines, and though the firemen worked with 
a will, they could not save the Old North." 

H. C. — "I suppose you see a good many new 
things and inventions, especially in the methods 
of transportation?" 

"Webster Elm. — "I guess I have. I have told 
of the way people came to meeting in the old 
times. But for public travel, there was first the 
lines of Concord stages that passed over this street 
on their way to and from the north country. In 
the winter there was a frequent procession of red- 
colored two-horse pungs that wended their way to 
and from the down country market. Then way 
back in the forties, I first saw the trains of cars 
whizzing along over the intervale. Then a few 
years ago came the horse cars and later the trolley 
car that passes almost under my branches, every 
fifteen minutes, from early morn till late at night. 
And within a few years a new-fangled vehicle has 
been invented, called an automobile. Wliat will 
come next I do not pretend to know. Probably 
the balloons will be sailing through the air, like 
the ships at sea, and I expect one may get tangled 
up in my branches. It is a wonderful age, and 



168 Wayside Jottings 

there is no knowing what is a-going to happen in 
the next fifty years." 

H. C. — "Yes, even the theology has been changed 
from what it used to be when the people met in 
the Old North for worship. If the old ministers 
who preached there should revisit the glimpses of 
the moon, to use a slang expression, they would 
find the stuffing knocked out of their theology and 
the Protestant world is all at sea as to what to 
believe and what not to believe. Evolution and 
the higher criticism have done the business pretty 
effectually. 

"But I think that I have interviewed you suf- 
ficiently to-day and I must be moving along. 
Hope that you will live to see a thousand years, 
and remain as handsome as you are to-day. So 
Good-bye." 

Webster Elm. — "Thank you for your wish and 
compliment. 'Handsome is that handsome does, 
you know.' So good day." 

The writer saw the Old North Church go up in 
flame and smoke on the night of November 28, 
1870, and although it was the finest display in the 
way of fireworks that was ever seen in Concord, 
yet it was also a sad sight to the old residents, for 
the structure that was intimately connected with the 
history of the old town in one short hour vanished 
from sight. If the hand of the incendiary had 
let it alone, the church might have remained as the 
most interesting historical structure in Concord, 
bearing the same relation to this city that the Old 




Resideiu-e of Kx-(i()v. Frank W. Rollins 




Resick'iici' of Dr. (ii-ortfc M. KiiHl)all 



Wayside Jottings 169 

South Church does to Boston, which has thus far 
been spared from fire and destruction. What an 
appropriate place it would have been to hold the 
Old Home gatherings, especially the tenth anni- 
versary of Old Home Week, which occurs next 
summer! It stood within almost a stone's throw 
of the pleasant home of Gov. Frank AV. Rollins, 
the originator of Old Home Week. It would 
be also interesting to know how many persons re- 
main in the land of the living who attended ser- 
vices in this church. Those who are living have 
passed into the sere and yellow leaf of old age, and 
one of the old square pews — built in that form 
probably to accommodate the large families of that 
time — would contain all of them. 



XXXI. 

It is a pleasant hour and a half ride, in the sum- 
mer time, from Concord to Manchester on the elec- 
trics, and the three miles of the road that is passed 
over in going through Pembroke Street is not the 
least interesting part of the trip. In fact, there 
is no other section on the line of this road that 
exceeds it in interest. This street has always 
seemed to the writer as an ideal place for a farmer 
to live; we should judge that farmers mainly in- 
habit it. The homes that line both sides of the 
street indicate that those who occupy them are 
well-to-do in life ; the soil of the farms is generally 
of a good quality, and for more than a century and 



170 Wayside Jottings 

a half it has rewarded the labor of the husband- 
man. Although Pembroke is bounded on three of 
its sides by the Soucook, Merrimack and Suncook 
Rivers, respectively, on the north, west and south, 
it has no pond within its borders. In this re- 
spect it is somewhat unique. How many towns 
are there in the state that can not number one or 
more ponds within its limits? One is inclined to 
wonder what the successive generations of small 
boys have done for places where they could fish 
and skate. Of course they could bathe in these 
rivers. 

While there are probably a hundred houses be- 
sides out-buildings on the line of Pembroke Street, 
they do not make so great a showing as though 
they were arranged in the more compact form of a 
village. The building of the electric road has 
changed somewhat the future of the town, and 
made it in one sense a suburb of Concord. At 
present, perhaps, this is more especially the case 
in the summer season, though as the old residents 
pass away and the farms go into other hands, they 
will possibly be divided up and thus furnish de- 
sirable homes, not only for summer residents, but 
for those to dwell here the year round. 

Pembroke was incorporated by the authorities of 
the province of New Hampshire, November 1, 1759. 
Its name took the place of what was known as 
Suncook, or the Lovewell township, it being a 
section of the Merrimack valley that was granted 
to the survivors, heirs and descendants of Capt. 



Wayside Jottings 171 

John Lovewell and his company of brave men who 
went from Dunstable — now Nashua — into the Pig- 
wacket Country to clean out the Indians, who were 
making themselves a nuisance to the early settlers. 

What time the noble Lovewell came 

With forty men from Dunstable 
The cruel Pequot tribes to tame, 

With arms and bloodshed terrible. 

But instead of taming the Pequots, they came 
pretty near being tamed themselves, Captain Love- 
well and fourteen of his men being killed in their 
encounter with the redskins near the shore of the 
pond at Pigwacket. In spite, however, of tliis dis- 
aster, the Indians, who suffered severely in this 
"fight, were checked in their course of pillage and 
murder in the province ; no more serious trouble 
was experienced at their hands, and it was alto- 
gether fitting that the survivors and the heirs and 
descendants should receive a testimonial, and Pem- 
broke is a fitting monument of it. 

We have been hearing a good deal in recent 
years about "deserted farms" in our state, and a 
good many of them deserved to be deserted, and 
more ought to follow suit and let the forest groA\i:h 
take possession. But before we pass over the Sou- 
cook into Pembroke we go through a section of 
Concord that was once quite a farming section. 
The farms were situated mainly, as we understand, 
near the Soucook River, which here beats the 
Merrimack on the score of crookedness. Accord- 
ing to Giles Wheeler, in former davs, there were 



172 Wayside Jottings 

quite a number of farm houses, some fifteen, in 
this section of Concord, but now they have all dis- 
appeared. This change, as we understand it, is 
not due to any exhaustion of the soil, but mainly 
to the fact that the Amoskeag ]\Ianufacturing Com- 
pany having- gotten possession of the water power 
at Garvin's Falls, bought up the land adjacent to 
these falls. These farmers disposed of their real 
estate and left for other localities. 

We see in the history of Garvin's Falls an illus- 
tration of the old adage that "there is many a 
slip between the cup and the lip." As the writer 
understands it, this section of Concord came pretty 
near being the site of the city which was finally 
located at Lawrence — as only one vote decided, as 
we are told, the matter of location. We can see 
in imagination what a thriving manufacturing city 
Concord would have been, and a rival to Man- 
chester. As there is nothing in the new "History 
of Concord" bearing on this particular, that the 
writer can discover, we have relied on the memory 
of others as to the accuracy of this statement. As 
it was the turning point in Concord's history as 
to whether it should remain a rural city, or 
blossom out into a manufacturing center, perhaps 
it was thought the less said about it the better. 

The only buildings of a public character on the 
line of Pembroke Street are the Congregational 
Church, the Pembroke Academy, the town house 
and "the little red school house," though perhaps 
it has a more modern color, being of brick. While 



Wayside Jottings 173 

three of these structures might be called old, the 
academy building is new, having been built but a 
few years ago, and replacing the old academy that 
was burned. Away back in the forties, Pembroke 
enjoyed the privilege and perhaps the notoriety 
of having two rival schools on its street, the old 
school, or what was sometimes known as the 
Blanchard Academy, built in 1829, and what was 
known as the ''Gymnasium." This latter school 
occupied a building that was erected for its par- 
ticular use, but which is now known as the town 
hall. It is said the to\A'n in those years was rent 
into factions over these schools, one faction being 
partisans of the academy, and the other faction 
being champions of the gymnasium. This ruction, 
as we understand it, was over a principal of the 
academy whom the trustees had either tired or 
^iven opportunity to resign. For a few years the 
school had a large attendance, and we should judge 
from the statement of a Concord boy who attended 
the academy in those years that this partisan spirit 
Avas more or less manifested in the conduct of the 
scholars of these rival schools toward each other. 
"On the way to and from the academy," he says, 
"from my boarding place, I was often the target 
for the gibes, and sometimes for the missiles, of 
the students, or the enterprising friends of the 
younger seminary. I could then throw a stone 
with some force and accurac.y on suitable occasions, 
and those of us who lived north of the gj^mnasium, 



174 Wayside Jottings 

and had to pass it four times a day, finally obtained 
peace by being always ready to fight for it." 

At one time considerable attention was paid to 
military tactics, introduced by Captain Partridge, 
well known from his connection with the military 
school at Norwich, Vt., and of which this school 
was made a branch. After continuing about seven- 
teen years, mainly on account of having no perma- 
nent fund, it gave up the ghost, and its interests 
were united with those of Pembroke Academy. 

XXXII. 

One of the old-time ministers of Pembroke was 
Eev. Dr. Abraham Burnham, who for forty-three 
years was pastor of the Congregational Church in 
that town. He was born in Dunbarton, ]\Iarch 8, 
1775, and died September 21, 1852. He was the 
contemporary of other old-time ministers who lived 
in the Merrimack valley, notably the Rev. Dr. Asa 
McFarland, the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Bouton, and 
the Rev. Asa P. Tenney, who served the churches 
over which they were pastors respectively twenty- 
seven, forty-two, and thirty-four years. He was 
ordained as pastor March 2, 1807, and dismissed 
November 20, 1850. In the earlier years of his 
ministrj^ he officiated in two meeting houses in 
town, — one known as the ''North Meeting House," 
situated at the upper end of Pembroke Street, and 
at the "South Meeting House," the present church, 
— one-half of the time in one and one-half of the 



WoA/side Jottings 176 

time in the other. Afterwards these churches 
united their forces, and during the remainder of 
his pastorate he officiated in the church which is 
still standing. It was the custom in his days to 
have long pastorates, instead of a minister having 
to pull up stakes every few years and seek pastures 
new; and it seems as though it would have been 
just as well if this custom had been continued. 
During Doctor Burnham's pastorate of forty -three 
years there was considerable marrying and giving 
in marriage, for in the "History of Pembroke" 
there is a record of three hundred and eleven mar- 
riages performed by him from 1807 to 1851. As 
Senator Henry E. Burnham was bom in Dunbar- 
ton, it is probable that he is a relative of this divine. 
We believe Mrs. Joseph B. Walker of this city is a 
granddaughter. And among the last of the mar- 
riages at which he officiated there is this record: 
"1850, I\ray 1, Joseph B. Walker to Elizabeth L. 
Upham, both of Concord." 

In the last number of the Jottings reference 
was made to a Concord boy that attended school 
at Pembroke Academy way back in the forties. 
He boarded in Doctor Burnham's family and in a 
volume of "Recollections" he describes some of the 
traits of this clergyman. He says: "Doctor Burn- 
ham had a serious face, thoughtful expression, and 
was rather abrupt in manner, so that his real char- 
acter did not manifest itself to everybody. He 
kept a good horse, and was fond of having us drive 
with him to 'Buck Street,' or North Pembroke. 



176 Wayside Jottings 

There was au abundance of wholesome food on his 
table, at which we were never seated until, all 
assembled and standing, the divine blessing had 
been solicited. He liked cheerful conversation, 
and a lively joke. I remember an occasion at 
family prayers when he read a chapter in the Old 
Testament, in which mention is made of the Heb- 
ronites. Closing the Bible with a smart bang, he 
remarked : ' We have some Hebronites in New 
Hampshire.' 'Why, where?' said Mrs. Burnham, 
with some surprise. 'Up in Hebron,' he replied, 
gaily, and then arose and began a fervent prayer. 
To those who deemed him a severe man this would 
have seemed a queer thing to do; but, in truth, 
he was not a severe man. He was a brisk, hearty, 
New England clergyman, sound and mellow, not 
too theological to be human." The good doctor 
might have also remarked that we have some 
Canaanites up in Canaan, and some Goshenites up 
in Goshen. 

The writer does not know of a more beautiful 
view along the Merrimack valley than is sf on from 
the car window as we descend from the l^oights of 
Allenstown, near the home of the late Gen. Natt 
Head, and coast down the hill in the direction of 
Hooksett. It would make a splendid scene for an 
artist to transfer to his canvas, or for a poet to 
transmute into verse. Among the most prominent 
elevations seen in the background are Wood Hill, 
west, across the Merrimack in the town of Bow, 
and old Kearsarge, further in the distance to the 



Wayside Jottings 177 

northward, where for ages he has seemed to be 
looking in the direction of his brothers in the 
Wlute Hills. It is the grandest mountain in 
central New Hampshire, and is not half appreci- 
ated. The writer never catches a view of it but 
what he thinks of the time, way back in the fifties, 
when in company with a party of Colby Academy 
students he made the ascent up its rock-ribbed 
side on the evening of a Fourth of July. There 
was some risk in performing this feat, in the night 
time, but the glorious sunrise the next morning 
amply repaid for all the toil and danger of the 
ascent. 

Probably it will never be known just what the 
name of Hooksett means. It dates back to an 
early period in the history of our country. I. W. 
Hammond, in his compilation of state papers, says : 
The name Isle au Hooksett and Isle au Hook- 
sett Falls was given to this locality many years 
before the incorporation of the towTi, but it is im- 
possible to ascertain its derivation." We Avill, 
however, give a guess, that the name probably has 
reference to the fishing customs of the Indians, 
and to whom it must have been one of their favor- 
ite resorts in the fishing season. No doubt the 
salmon, in the olden days, had the time of their 
lives in getting up over the falls, when there was 
no dam to obstruct their course. 

Hooksett village is an odd looking place and 
comports well wdth its name. In his lifetime, Bon- 
ney's Tavern, kept by Horace Bonney, was a 

12 



178 Wayside Jottings 

famous hostelry and a favorite resort of travelers 
and parties. We well remember, some years ago, 
of going to this tavern with a sleighing party from 
Concord and of the good cheer that Mr. Bonney 
gave his guests. The supper table ahnost groaned 
with its burden of good things to eat. Here Presi- 
dent Andrew Jackson tarried for a few hours, 
with other distinguished men, in June, 1833, when 
he passed through the village on his way to Con- 
cord. The reception that he got, it is said, was 
entirely unconventional. He slipped into the 
kitchen of the tavern, where the cook was frying 
doughnuts, and asked the privilege of sampling 
them. The cook also offered him some cheese to 
go with the douglmuts, and then "Old Hickory" 
stepped outside the house to take a view of Hook- 
sett Falls. 

There is nothing very attractive in the view 
from the car window as we speed along the route 
between Hooksett and Manchester. We strike the 
Londonderry turnpike, on which, years ago, the 
lines of stages passed along on their trips between 
Concord and Boston. One going in comfort, and 
at fairly good speed on the electrics, alongside of 
this highway, cannot help contrasting the new 
with the old — the trolley car with the stage coach. 
In the summer time, one would fare fairly well 
riding by stage, though it was a tedious way of 
traveling. But in the A^dnter time, in zero weather, 
it must have been not only tedious, but rough. 
Journeying in this way, however, was only in 



Wayside Jottings 179 

keeping with the manner of life in those days. It 
is doubtful if any of the later generation of boys 
and girls ever rode inside or outside of a stage 
coach. An auto is none too good for their blood, 
and a balloon will probably come next. 

The first street that we cross when we near the 
Queen City is Webster Street, named, of course, 
for the great Daniel, New Hampshire's greatest 
son. If we take this street west to Elm Street, it 
leads us through a section of the city that might 
be called the new Manchester. It is the finest 
residential part of the town and is in marked con- 
trast with some of the older sections, especially the 
"Barbary Coast." Here we have a chance to ob- 
serve the varioas styles of modem house architec- 
ture in the dwellings that the business and pro- 
fessional men of ^Manchester have reared for them- 
selves. They are beautiful homes, and with ample 
grounds around them. A few years ago this whole 
section of the city was a pasture, or waste land, on 
which mainly grew pitch pine and the scrub oak. 
For a few years the old New Hampshire State Fair 
held its exhibitions here, as some of the older 
readers of the "Jottings" will remember. 

XXXIII. 

A while ago a life-long resident of Concord ex- 
pressed his opinion to the writer that "The Old 
North End" would be an interesting subject to 
write up for one chapter of these Jottings. The 



180 Wayside Jottings 

writer agreed with that opinion, and remembering 
that Gov. Frank W. Rollins had contributed to the 
Granite Monthly, a few years since, an interesting 
article on the same subject, the writer obtained 
Governor Rollins' permission to use in one or more 
issues of the Monitor what he had written on this 
subject. It was written in Governor Rollins' best 
vein, and matches well \^dth Henry McFar land's 
"Recollections." They were both "North-End- 
ers, " were both good wielders of the pen, and the 
results of their efforts were interesting to peruse. 
On account of the length of the article the writer 
is forced to abridge it somewhat. 

" 'The Old North End!' There is music in its 
very name, a conservatism, a sound of strength, ^ 
restfulness, a peacefulness, at least, to me. Is it 
my imagination? 

"There it is unchanged, and yet so changed. The 
same broad streets, the same old trees (a few miss- 
ing), the same old houses. Other parts of the city 
have grown, have expanded; new streets have shot 
out, like young twigs on a hardy willow; ornate 
modern houses, with tow^ers, cupolas, fancy piazzas, 
and all that the latter-day architect can devise to 
hide the lines of grace and beauty, have sprung 
up; brick blocks line the business streets; public 
buildings both costly and architecturally good, 
adorn the central portion of the town ; but the old 
North End goes peacefully on, undisturbed by the 
march of time, and regardless of the pushings and 
elbowings of the ambitious present. 



Wayside Jottings 181 

' ' I wish to speak of the North End as I remember 
it when a boy — not so very long ago, yet a quarter 
of a century is quite a period,— and while few 
changes have taken place in its outward appear- 
ance, in its personnel, how changed! 

"At the time of which I speak, the arch of great 
elms extended south as far as Chapel Street, and 
there was a row of magnificent trees on the east 
even as far south as Pitman Street. In front of 
the old ^Morrill house, now gone, a row of Lom- 
bardy poplars stood, like a file of prim and erect 
sentinels, against the sky. No one knows exactly 
the reason of the death of all the trees on this side 
of the street, but they went one by one, and people 
generally laid the blame at the door of the gas 
company. 

" 'The Old North End' ls bounded on the east 
by Fort Eddy, on the north by Horse Shoe Pond, 
and on the west by a range of wooded hills — all 
points of interest to me as a boy. A large part of 
my childhood was spent in and on (more in than 
on) the waters of Horse Shoe Pond. I always kept 
a boat or canoe at what was called the 'swimming 
hole,' at the lower end near the ice house, and 
early morning usually found me cruising after 
pond lilies, or wading for cat-o '-nine-tails among 
the intricate passages which intersected the north- 
ern end of the pond. On a bit of firm ground in 
the midst of this waste of water and bushes we 
had a "\dgwam, fully equipped with all the imple-- 
ments of wild life and the chase. Those were 



182 Wayside Jottings 

halcyon days! One of the favorite amusements 
was to take a flat-bottomed boat and turn it upside 
down, then raise it and drop it gently and evenly 
on the water so as to retain the air under it, when it 
would float upon its edges, leaving a large space 
full of air underneath. Then we would dive and 
come up under the boat, push it all about the pond, 
in a manner most mysterious to those not in the 
secret. The great test of swimming ability was to 
swim up to a point opposite Fosterville and back. 
I remember John B. Abbott was the champion in 
my time. 

"I don't know whether 'Fort Eddy' is the mine 
of delight to the boys of today that it was to us, 
but certainly some of the happiest of my boyhood 
days were passed there. To begin with, we looked 
upon it with awe, as there was a tradition among 
us that it had been the scene of a great Indian 
battle, between the Penacooks and Mohawks, and 
we thought we discovered the partly-effaced lines 
of earth worlvs and were always digging in hopes 
of finding relics of the battle. Every peculiarly 
shaped stone we came across was a battle-axe head, 
an arrow-head, or something of the kind. Then, 
too, the peculiar shape of. the peninsula rendered 
it particularly well fitted for defence, and it was 
the scene of many a pitched battle between 'our 
crowd' and 'the others.' There was good fish- 
ing in 'the Eddy,' and occasionally game along 
the river, and it was remote enough from the city 



Wayside Jottings 183 

so that we were not disturbed, no matter what 
we did." 

XXXIV. 

This number of the Jottings is made up mainly 
of Governor Rollins' reminiscences of those who 
resided in the "Old North End" when he was a 
boy. As nearly twelve years have passed away 
since these reminiscences were written, many of 
the old residents herein named have deceased, and 
he could well declare that "while a few changes 
have taken place in the outward appearance of this 
section of the city, in its personnel how changed ! ' ' 
It is the saddest thing in human experience that 
when one is pleasantly situated in life, and can 
say with one of old that ' ' our lines are cast in pleas- 
ant places ; yea we have a goodly heritage ' ' ; when 
his time comes he has to submit to the inevitable 
and "depart for that bourne whence no traveler re- 
turns." It is an illustration of the irony of fate 
that is w^orld-wide. 

' ' Let us begin at the north end of Main Street, ' ' 
says Governor Rollins, "and note some of the 
changes. Hon. Joseph B. Walker looks much as 
he did, except that time has added a little more 
silver to his hair, but he is the same unobtrusive, 
courteous gentleman as of yore, and his ancestral 
home and the noble elms around it still stand, a 
landmark in Concord. My mother used to tell me 
she remembered when there was a flight of steps 



184 Wayside Jottings 

leading up to a row of seats in one of the great 
elms in front of the house. 

"Col. Enoch Gerrish, whose house was always 
open to me as a boy and whose bluff kindness was 
appreciated, remains [since deceased], though seen 
about the city perhaps less than years ago. He has 
spent much of his time of late in travel, and talks 
very interestingly about the countries he has 
visited. 

"]\Ir. Francis A. Fiske passed away some years 
since, a man whose kindly smile and loving neigh- 
borliness endeared him to all the community. His 
son, Mr. William P. Fiske, retains the old home 
and his father's sterling traits of character. The 
old F. A. Fiske store, one of the few reminders of 
the days when the North End was the business 
part of Concord, still stands, though the business 
has passed into other hands. 

"I can just remember the old Kimball house, 
which is now replaced by the substantial and per- 
fectly appointed home of Mr. Samuel S. Kimball 
[since deceased] , a man with whom modesty is a 
mania, and whose kindly and good deeds were 
always done with diligent secrecy. Dr. G. IM. 
Kimball now resides in the paternal home. 

"WIlo cannot remember Col. John H. George? 
I can see him now, hurrying down the street with 
quick, short steps, always ready with a hearty 
handshake and some quip or story; warm-hearted, 
quick to anger and as ready to forgive and forget, 
large of frame, large of heart, his home was always 



Wayside Jottings 185 

open and his hospitality boundless. His son and 
daughter keep up the traditions of the famil}^, and 
I believe their front door is never locked, at least 
I never knew any one to ring the bell. 

"Mrs. Robert E. Pecker lived in the house now 
occupied by Dr. W. G. Carter [since deceased], 
and many a good dinner have I eaten at her hos- 
pitable board. She passed away some years since, 
respected and beloved by all who knew her. This 
house was built in 1791 by Philip Carrigan, and on 
account of its size and expense was called ' Carri- 
gan 's Folly.' It was a garrison house, where sol- 
diers were quartered in the War of 1812. 

"Dr. F. D. Ayer has endeared himself to all our 
people during his long and faithful ministry. He 
is now frequently seen upon his bicycle — this was 
in 1897. Shades of Nathaniel Bouton : "What 
would the people of the old North End have said 
fifty years ago to have seen one of their pastors 
astride a wheel? But times have changed. (And 
Governor Rollins might have also said are still 
changing, for the auto has displaced the bicycle.) 

" 'Honest John Abbott' was tenderly laid to rest 
several years ago. Never was there a more hon- 
orable, a more kindly man. His heart was as large 
and tender as his frame was massive and towering. 
A devoted husband and father. I remember him 
with especially tender feelings, for I spent so many 
happy hours at his home and knew him intimately. 

"Judge Asa Fowler has gone to his reward and 
his familv are no longer numbered among the resi- 



186 Wayside Jottings 

dents of Concord. They, however, have not for- 
gotten the place of their nativity and have made 
the distinguished name of their father familiar to 
the younger generations by the 'Fowler Memorial 
Library. ' 

"Dr. Ezra Carter; does not that name call up 
memories to all North End people? I can see his 
smiling, benignant face now, entering the sick 
room and bringing cheer, hope, relief, by his very 
presence. He was the most perfect representative 
of the old family physician— the gentleman of the 
old school — I have ever known. None knew him 
but to love him, and whose death would have been 
an irreparable loss if his noble traits of character 
had not been transmitted to his son, Dr. W. G. 
Carter [since deceased] whom I venture to state 
never had an enemy in his life. 

' ' Hon. Asa McFarland was . then a prominent 
figure on our streets, but he has passed away full 
of years and leaving behind him a blessed memory 
of good deeds and an open record of a well-spent 
life. 

"Maj. Henry McFarland, who for many years 
lived just south of the Rollins place, has come back 
to us after a long absence, and no man could be 
more welcome. He is the best type of a good 
citizen. 

"The Rev. Nathaniel Bouton's name will always 
be a prominent one in the history of Concord, not 
only for his long ministry of forty years, but be- 
cause of his love for and association with the 



Wayside Jottings 187 

records of the city. His clear-cut features, his 
erect figure, stand out before me as a silhouette 
upon the background of the past. 

"Bishop Niles had just arrived among us. and 
while we knew him by reputation, he did not then 
occupy that large and prominent place in our affec- 
tions and respect that he now holds. I doubt if 
New Hampshire ever had a man within her borders 
of broader learning, of greater grasp of facts and 
with nobler ideals and aspirations. 

* ' Dr. G. P. Conn is still in active practice among 
us, in the prime of life, a man of broad experience, 
inexhaustible good humor and widely known. 

"Evil-doers no longer have to face Judge Dana, 
but his name has been prominently connected with 
our police court ever since I can remember, and 
I am happy to say he seems well and active yet. 

"Oliver Pillsbury was deeply regretted when he 
was taken away. A man of ripe judgment, honor- 
able, honored, tried and true. 

"Who did not love Maj. A. B. Thompson? A 
tried soldier, a true Christian gentleman, an up- 
right citizen. In him 'the Old North End' lost 
one of its beacon lights. 

"Hon. E. H. Rollins died in 1889, and I think I 
may justly say that his life was not without its 
uses. He served his state and his constituents 
faithfully, and was always true to himself and his 
friends. Part of the family still live in Concord, 
but the old West house becoming too old for a 
habitation, has been torn doAvn." 



188 Wayside Jottings 

XXXV. 

Concord has been rather unfortunate in the loss 
of church edifices by fire. Six of them have been 
consumed within the last sixty years, and the 
writer saw five of them burn, viz., the first Unita- 
rian, November 2, 1854; South Chui'ch, summer of 
1859 ; Old North, November 28, 1870 ; New North, 
June 29, 1873; New Unitarian. April 25, 1888. 
The West Church was burned September 4, 1869. 

Governor Rollins, in his "Old North End" 
sketch, gives a graphic account of the destruction 
of the second North Church edifice. It is a fine 
pen picture of the event and is true to life, as the 
writer, who saw it burn, can readily attest. To 
our finite vision it seems, at first thought, that a 
church edifice, dedicated to the worship of Al- 
mighty God, ought to have a special protection 
from flood and flame — in fact, ought to be as im- 
mune as were the three ancient Avorthies who were 
cast into Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. But, 
under the universal law, the fire fiend is no re- 
specter of persons or property and gets in his 
destructive work, and always will. 

''The burning of the North Church," he says, 
"was a personal loss to me; I loved the old build- 
ing, with its high tower, its long box-pews and tall 
pulpit. It had ample grounds and a high iron 
fence around it, and not the least loss by the fire 
was the row of beautiful maples which encircled 
it. ]\Iany of my ancestors were Congregationalists 




Tlic Old Ndrth Clmrrli 
First Kr.uiu- Mi-itinsr Hduse 



Wayside Jottings 189 

and attended this church, and I always felt as 
much at home in it as in my own. 

"In this great conflagration the massive timbers 
of the spire resisted till the last. The covering, or 
boarding, was all burned off, leaving the timbers 
with the great bell hanging between, which had 
rung so many times on Sabbath mornings to call its 
people to devotion, which had tolled for so many of 
the departed, which had awakened me so many 
times with its wild clamor of alarm, and which I 
had, surreptitiously, helped so many times peal out 
its glad welcome to the morn on May day and on 
Fourth of July. 

"The bell went first, and many a man felt sad 
as it crashed into the fiery furnace below, there to 
be turned into the molten mass from which it was 
cast. The spire did not long survive. For min- 
utes we watched it sway and totter, while the 
flames and sparks poured up its sides and into the 
blackness of the heavens above in one great, riotous, 
jubilant roar. You could almost hear the fire 
fiends laugh with delight. Then it swayed dizzily 
towards the south, then tottered towards the east, 
as though bowing a final adieu, and at last took one 
grand plunge into the ruins of the church itself. 
A mass of sparks and flame swept upwards, then 
blackness settled down, and a chill fell on every 
heart, for we realized that the Old North Church 
was no more. 

"In my boyhood, the old hand tub played an 
important part in our fire department, and played 



190 Wayside Jottings 

it well. The best company was the 'No. 2,' whose 
house was ou the top of Chapel Street, just in the 
rear of the ^Methodist Church. The company was 
a large one and comprised a good part of the 
young, active men of the North End. When the 
alarm bells rang and the populace shouted 'Fire!' 
which everyone did as soon as he could get his 
head outside the door, there was a race for the 
No. 2 house. The first to arrive threw open the 
doors, grabbed the steering handles and, without 
waiting for an}' help, started the machine out of 
the house and do^n the hill. The old tub would 
rattle down to Main Street like a locomotive and 
then the enterprising steersman would mount the 
machine and ring the bell on top till enough men 
arrived to man the drag-ropes and pull it to the 
fire. This No. 2 Company was a very enterprising 
one, and there was great rivalry between it and 
the other engines. The one to get on the first 
stream was very proud of the fact. It used to be 
darkly hinted that sometimes the members of this 
company got advance news of fires to come, but 
of this I cannot speak. There was one member of 
this company who was my particular admiration. 
His name was Ben Ouillette, a Frenchman, and in 
five minutes after he arrived at a fire he always 
appeared on the roof and chopped a hole in it. It 
didn't matter where the fire was, — in the cellar or 
first story, — there must be a hole in the roof. To 
me no fire would be complete without Ben Ouillette 
and his hole in the roof. 



Wayside Jottings 191 

' ' The real Old North Church antedated the one I 
have described by a great many years. It stood 
where the "Walker School now stands, was built of 
wood, painted white and was of rather an am- 
bitious style of architecture. In my boyhood it 
was used as a Methodist Seminary, and one of the 
yearly duties incumbent on us boys was the horn- 
ing of the students on INIay Day morning. Those 
students were muscular Christians and we were 
assailed by every kind of a missile, in a most un- 
Christian-like manner, much to our delight. They 
didn't turn the other cheek; they turned the hose 
on us, or anything they could lay their hands on. 
This old building also went up in flames one night 
and the North End boys were deprived of a great 
source of amusement." 



XXXVI. 

There is nothing more unlike in the way of 
natural scenery in the Merrimack valley than what 
pertains to Rattlesnake Hill, up in the West Con- 
cord district, and what for years has been kno\^Ti 
as the "Plains," over the river. The former, 
rough, rugged and rocky ("rock-ribbed" is Bry- 
ant's characterization), and typical of the Granite 
State ; the other devoid of picturesqueness and 
more prairie-like, barring its pitch pines. Rattle- 
snake was a product of the period in the world's 
geological history when it shot up from the bowels 
of the earth along with the rest of New Hamp- 



192 Wayside Jottings 

shire hills and mountains. The Plains is a product 
of the glacial or drift period in that history^, when 
there was a mighty rush of waters from the north- 
ern regions bearing along all kinds of debris from 
the land of ice and snow and materially changing 
the face of Dame Nature. 

The Plains soil formation includes probably an 
area of thi'ee or more square miles and extends 
from the vicinity of Turtletown on the north, to 
the Pembroke line on the south, and from the 
bluffs on the east side of the intervale, on the west, 
to the Suncook river on the east. It was known 
aforetime as the "Dark Plains." We say "afore- 
time," for quite a change has taken place in the 
phj'sieal apearance of this section of the city during 
the last fifty or sixty years. Then it could be so 
rightly named on account of the dense growth of 
pines, mainly pitch pines, that covered the land. 
The highway leading from the top of the Gully 
Hill Road to the "Break of Day," a distance of 
perhaps three miles, was through these woods, and 
the ride in a dark night was rather lonesome; any- 
one inclined to be timid felt like "whistling to 
keep his courage up," the same as when passing 
by the traditional grave yard, his brain, however, 
not conjuring up visions of ghosts, but of highway 
robbers. 

In the spring or early summer it was a great 
section of the city for forest fires; the light from 
them loomed up grandly in the night time, and it 
is quite probable that every acre of the Plains at 



Wayside Jottings 193 

one time or another has been burned over either 
once or more than once. These fires did not seem 
to damage the pines very much, as the flames swept 
through them quickly ; they were a hardy kind of 
a tree, of an older growth and somewhat larger 
than we see standing now, and could stand quite 
a scorching. Now a good share of the Plains is 
cleared land, a portion laid out into streets on 
which have been erected comfortable homes; also 
a fine schoolhouse and a neat chapel for Sunday 
worship. If an electric line should ever be built 
through the eastern part of the state, it would 
become an important suburb of Concord. In fact, 
it is getting to be so now if one may judge from 
the amount of suburban news that is furnished the 
Evening Monitor from week to week by its enter- 
prising correspondent, "Pilgrim." 

It was, as we understand, some time in the 
fifties that Thomas B. Tamblyn erected the first 
dwelling house on the left side of the road at tlie 
top of Gully Hill, and which is still standing. 
Afterwards, in the same decade, the Merrimack 
County Agricultural Society cleared a small tract 
of land and erected some buildings and cattle pens 
and there held the annual fairs for a few years. 
When the Civil War broke out, these buildings and 
the fair ground were taken by the state for a camp. 
More buildings were erected, and a majority of 
the regiments that went to the front from our state 
were mustered into the service and drilled here, 
and thousands of soldiers marched out of the camp 



194 Wayside Jottings 

ground and down Main Street and took the trains 
for the seat of war, and many of them never came 
back. When the writer rides through the "Gully" 
— which Nature laid out for a highway — he misses 
the fine growth of pines that lined both sides of 
the picturesque road. The woodman's axe and 
the steam sawmill got in their deadly work and 
the result is seen in the denuded hillsides. Per- 
haps in times there may be a new growth of pines. 

Geologists tell us that the soils found in the 
Merrimack valley come under the class known as 
''transported soils" and are of glacial origin. 
During the period termed the "Glacial Epoch," 
all of New Hampshire was covered by a moving 
ice sheet of great thickness. This moving mass, by 
crushing and grinding the rock material, rounded 
off the tops of the hills and ridges, and filled in the 
valleys with this transported material. As the ice 
melted it left on this surface an unstratified mass 
of fine and coarse material and this formed the 
soil. At the close of the "Glacial Epoch," the 
land is believed to have subsided, a change to a 
warmer climate also taking place. During this 
epoch the Merrimack valley was filled up as high 
as the highest terraces by materials carried by 
streams issuing from the glacial ice front. 

Geologists also tell us that the most extensive 
area of sand plains occurs along the Merrimack 
and some of the rivers flowing into it. The largest 
area is the sand plain across the river in Concord. 
Other areas occur along the lower course of the 



Wayside Jottings 195 

Contoocook and also along the "Warner and Black- 
water Rivers. Along the Merrimack it occupies 
high, broad, flat terraces, which are one hundred 
feet or more above the river, while along the Con- 
toocook and the other streams it occupies tracts but 
a few feet above the stream. Its area is generally 
marked by the predominance of pitch pine, which 
is not, as a rule, very large, and sometimes by 
scrub oak. When such land is burned over, blue- 
berries readily grow. From the nature of the soil 
it can only support a scant vegetation, although by 
the application of fertilizers, truck farming can 
be carried on with fair success. 

Scattered all over the farms in the iMerrimack 
vallej^ are also natural curiosities in the shape of 
boulders, large and small, that, as we understand, 
are the product of this glacial or drift period to 
which we have referred. There is a famous one 
on the Garrison farm in Hopkinton, the pleasant 
summer home of Gen. Harry H. Dudley of this 
city. It is a huge rock, measuring probably at 
least fifteen feet in height, seventy-five feet in cir- 
cumference, and weighing many hundred tons. A 
summer house has been erected on its top, and a 
flight of stairs built to get to it. A mammoth 
grape vine almost encircles it. Probably this 
boulder was embedded in a glacier in the Arctic 
regions and drifted down to the spot where it 
stranded. There must have been a mighty Titanic 
force that carried it along, and it is a striking 



196 Wayside Jottings 

object lesson of the epoch in which our world was 
being formed. 

Perhaps this sketch of the Plains would be in- 
complete without some reference to the state camp 
ground that forms an important feature of this 
section of Concord's suburbs. Nature must have 
formed this ground for the express purpose of the 
annual encampment of the soldier boys. As "the 
field of Mars" it could not be excelled. All that 
is needed is a trolley line to it, the same as to the 
state fair ground out on Clinton Street. Whether 
it would pay to build it is another question. 

XXXVII. 

Two prominent thoughts have come to the mind 
of the writer, in concluding these local sketches 
that have appeared at intervals of time for the past 
two and a half years in the Monitor and Patriot. 

One is, that if Concord, like Washington, is not 
a city of "magnificent distances" it might be said 
of it that it is a city of respectable distances. At 
least, the writer thought so when a few years ago, 
in company with the city engineer, he perambu- 
lated the boundary line on the north between the 
towns of Webster, Boscawen and Canterbury, and 
on the east and south, between the towns of Loudon 
and Pembroke. Its length, north and south, is 
about nine miles, and its breadth, east and west, 
is about eight miles, while its area, according to 
Mr. Walker's figures, as given in the "History of 



Wayside Jottings 197 

Concord," is 39,050 acres, of which 2,000 acres are 
covered with water. Of the soil composing the 
area of dry land, he says that "something more 
than one-half is suitable for tillage, while the re- 
mainder, being too rough for the plough, is well 
adapted to grazing and the production of wood 
and timber. ' ' And we might remark, let the ' ' pro- 
duction of wood and timber" go on, without any 
hindrance ; the coming generations will need them 
badly. "Here and there," he says, "undeveloped 
rock protrudes above the surface, and supplies the 
material for one of Concord's chief industries. 
Millions on millions of cubic yards of the choicest 
granite have been taken from old Rattlesnake, and 
millions on millions more await the quarryman's 
drill." While New Hampshire has been appropri- 
ately named the "Granite State," Concord might 
well be named the "Granite City." Fifty feet 
below the surface in the compact part of the to\vn 
the artesian drill struck a rocky foundation, which 
reaches to a depth of something over twelve hun- 
dred feet; how much further it extends in the 
direction of the earth's center, no one is supposed 
to know. 

The other thought, and perhaps the more im- 
portant one, is that while the description of ancient 
Zion as "beautiful for situation and the joy of the 
whole earth," might seem rather extravagant to 
apply to a rural city whose inhabitants for nearly 
five months in the year have to encounter the rigors 
of our New Hampshire winters and springs, yet 



198 Wayside Jottings 

it might be claimed by them that on the whole 
' ' our lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, yea 
we have a goodly heritage." And the question is 
a pertinent one: If w^e have "a goodly heritage," 
what is it that has made it so, or, in other words, 
what are the forces that have l)een at work in the 
something more than one hundred and eighty 
years of its history, to build up a community that 
is worth living in ? 

The seal of the city bears upon its face the 
legend, "Law, Education, Religion." The founda- 
tion of any civilized community rests primarily 
upon the respect and the observance of law. If 
all communities were perfectly law abiding, there 
would be no need of houses of correction, jails, 
prisons, or even a police force. But there come 
times of excitement when the lawless element for 
the time being prevails and manifests itself in 
deeds of violence, which all good citizens regret 
and condemn. This was seen on two occasions in 
Concord's history: First, in the year 1837, when 
George Thompson and John G. Whittier were 
mobbed and forced to leave town by stealth; it 
was seen again in the year 1861, when the Demo- 
cratic Stmidard office was raided and its contents 
destroyed. No reputable citizen, it is safe to 
affirm, was engaged in the first riot; but only 
''certain lewd fellows of the baser sort"; and in 
the latter case, a party of returned soldiers of the 
First Regiment of Volunteers, none of whom were 
citizens of Concord, under great provocation, were 



Wayside Jottings 199 

the chief offenders. No lives were sacrificed in 
either case, and the city, in the case of the Stand- 
ard riot, eventually paid the damage. This affair 
took place in the third story of Low's block, now 
the Woodward block, which stands on the east side 
of North IMain Street. Nothing to commemorate 
the event that we are aware of has ever been erect- 
ed, but if a tablet should be placed on the front 
of this block, it might appropriately bear this in- 
scription : 

Here the embattled Palmers stood 

And fired the shot heard 'roimd the town. 

With these exceptions, w^hich only prove the 
rule, the w^riter is warranted in affirming that in 
the years of its history, Concord has been a law- 
abiding community, where one ''could sit under 
his ovm vine and fig tree, with none to molest or 
make afraid." 

"Education" is the next legend on the seal of 
the city. During the first years of the settlement 
of the town, when it was known as the "Planta- 
tion of Penacook, ' ' one of the first acts of the pro- 
prietors was to make an appropriation for the sup- 
port of a school. To be sure, it was a small sum, 
about fifteen dollars, but all that was needed at 
that time, for it was "a day* of small things" in 
the settlement. It was held in a log house, with 
James Scales as teacher, and the curriculum con- 
sisted of the three R's, "Reading, 'Riting and 
'Rithmetic. " From that time, the school system 



200 Wayside Jottings 

of the town has been in a process of evolution till 
now the school houses and teachers have greatly 
increased in numbers, and appropriations for 
schools in the year 1908 amounted to the sum of 
$112,687.92. 

The third legend on the seal is "Religion." The 
first settlers were religious men and women. This 
was seen in the first Sabbath service that was held, 
under the canopy of Heaven, on the intervale near 
Sugar Ball, in charge of Rev. Enoch Coffin, after 
their arrival. It was afterwards seen when the 
log church was erected, to which both minister and 
people went armed to repel an attack from the 
Indians. It was seen in the erection of the Old 
North Church, where for a series of years all the 
people of the town united in worship on the Sab- 
bath. It was also manifested in after years, in 
the diversity of religious belief, which found ex- 
pression in the erection, in various parts of the 
town, of churches, of the Protestant and Catholic 
forms of belief, w^here all who desired to do so 
could meet and worship their Creator according to 
the dictates of their consciences. At the same 
time, there has been a succession of faithful min- 
isters and priests, who have labored earnestly for 
the promotion of a religious sentiment that should 
go hand in hand with law and education, in order 
to attain the best results in good citizenship. 

Sometimes one would like to forecast the future, 
and learn what of good or ill is in store for our 
rural city, standing on the banks of the Merri- 



Wayside Jottings 201 

mack. Its material growth has been gradual, but 
steady. Those who have been residents here for 
even fifty years can go back in memory and con- 
trast the appearance of the place, especially the 
business part of it, with what it was in the fifties. 
In the census of 1850, the population was 8,576 ; 
in the census of 1900 it was 19,632, a gain of 
11,056. Will the census of 1950 show a population 
of 40,000? If so, its expansion in population and 
in other ways will probably be in the direction of 
the South End or on the Plains, where there is 
much land to be possessed and occupied. But 
whatever may be its progress, it will no doubt su>s- 
tain its reputation for comfortable homes, in which 
law-abiding citizens will be found. And with this 
number of the "Wayside Jottings," thanking the 
men and women of our city who have given the 
writer their words of appreciation and encourage- 
ment, he concludes these local sketches of Concord 
and its suburbs. 



DEC £4 



■909 



